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THOUGHTS 

ON THE ■ ; 

LIFE AND CHARACTER 



JESUS OF NAZARETH 



W. H. FUEFESS 

MINISTER OF THE FIRST CONGREGATIONAL UNITARIAN 
CHURCH IN PHILADELPHIA 



BOSTON 

PHILLIPS, SAMPSON & COMPANY 

1859 



tD 



^^^\ 
'^^^-b 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1858, 

BY W. H. FURNESSj 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern District of 
Pennsylvania. 



In Exchaage 
Brown University 



C. SHERMAX & SOX, PRIXTERS, 
Corner of Seyenth and Cheri^ Streets, Philadelphia, 



THOUGHTS 



When I entered upon the duties of the Chris- 
tian ministry in Philadelphia, some three-and- 
thirty years ago, I very early learned that there 
was, belonging nominally to one or another of 
the orthodox denominations, or having no con- 
nection with any church, a growing number of 
individuals who were in doubt, not as to the 
claims of any particular form of Christian belief, 
but as to the historical truth of Christianity itself. 
Persons of this class had very little interest in 
determining which of the interpretations of the 
Bible, the Trinitarian or the Unitarian, were 
correct. For, either way, it did not mend the 
matter for them ; as they had pretty much made 



4 THOUGHTS ON 

up their minds that the Scriptures being, as they 
suspected, scarcely anything more than a mere 
collection of legends, were deserving of very 
little credit. 

In fact, what has now grown to be a conspi- 
cuous mark of our times, was, even then, more 
than a quarter of a century ago, becoming very 
clear. The unworthy representations of our 
religion, so long and widely prevalent, were 
producing in rapid and rank abundance their 
natural fruit, unbelief, — secret or openly ex- 
pressed. It was not unusual to hear doubts 
avowed as to whether such a person as Jesus 
Christ ever existed. 

Although the scepticism which false religion 
had so abundantly generated, was not always 
so ignorant as to go to the extreme of question- 
ing the actual existence of Jesus Christ, yet that 
there was anything in his history at all extraor- 
dinary was very often denied. The wonderful 
facts related concerning him were held to be all 
of a piece with the fables usually obscuring the 
early history of the established religions of man- 
kind. Indeed, what faith there was remain- 
ing among many intelligent men, or that was 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 5 

professed, was hardly anything more than a 
timid habit of time-serving. That religion 
should be patronized in one form or another, 
was considered highly respectable ; but then it 
was not for any intrinsic truth which it was 
believed to possess, but for mere reasons of 
State, and because there was a vague, conserva- 
tive impression abroad, that Churches and Sun- 
days, somehow or other, conduced to the good 
order of society. Under the rose, men had 
their own opinions, and very free opinions 
oftentimes they were ; and one of them was 
that, in all probability, the author of Chris- 
tianity was a wise and good man, but that his 
history, as it is given in the New Testament, is 
a tissue of fables, with only here and there per- 
haps a filament of truth, and that the origin of 
the Christian religion, like that of other long- 
established religions, is lost in a cloud of fic- 
tion. 

I remember, years ago, asking an intelligent 
gentleman, a highly respected resident of a 
western city, what the state of religious opinion 
was in his neighborhood, and whether there 
were many adherents of liberal Christianity 

1-^ 



6 THOUGHTS ON 

there. His reply was, that thinking men in 
that region had got quite beyond Unitarianism. 
This tendency of opinion, towards the utter re- 
jection of the historical truth of Christianity, 
has, in the course of time, become more and 
more strongly marked. On this side of the 
Atlantic it has found its fullest avowal in the 
writings of Theodore Parker, of whom, by the 
way, it is only simple justice to say, that, while 
he publishes the boldest opinions in theology, 
and questions nearly all the historical details of 
primitive Christianity, he shows by word and 
work, a faith truly apostolic in those high and 
broad principles of right and humanity, which 
are the vital elements of the Christian religion. 
Perceiving the state of mind, of which I 
speak, all around me, among persons whose in- 
telligence and culture commanded my respect ; 
seeing also the very unsatisfactory representa- 
tions of Christianity that were made, and upon 
what erroneous grounds, and with what con- 
tempt of natural reason its authority was urged; 
aware too that there were some things which, 
at first sight, afibrded a plausible justification 
of these radical doubts, and, finally, desirous of 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 7 

being thoroughly assured in my own mind, and 
of finding out how much of truth there is in the 
New Testament History, I was mioved, very 
early in my ministry, to examine it anew, with 
increased earnestness. 

A direction was thus early given to my mind 
which it has never lost. From that time, I 
have always been most interested in endeavor- 
ing to minister to the condition, rather of those 
who find it difficult to believe Christianity at 
all, than of those who are hesitating between 
the liberal and the orthodox interpretations of 
Christian truth. And what I have chiefly 
wished to do is, not to pull down what I ac- 
count error, but to build up what I have found 
to be true; not to deny, but to affirm. In ac- 
cordance with this wish, I have sought to ascer- 
tain what may be affirmed beyond the possi- 
bility of refutation, concerning Christianity, 
considered as an historical fact. 

While I have no love of destroying, merely 
for the sake of destroying, yet, in the endeavor 
to make manifest the historical truth of Chris- 
tianity, whatever erroneous opinions or doc- 
trines I find littering the ground on which I 



8 THOUGHTS ON 

would buildj I do not hesitate, with as little 
noise or dust as possible, to put aside, so that 
the truth may stand firmly based in its rightful 
place, and in its full unobstructed proportions. 

The result of my studies, in preparing for the 
m.inistry in the Theological School at Cam- 
bridge, under the late learned Professor Nor- 
ton, had been a very satisfactory conviction of 
the substantial truths of the New Testament 
History. I was very early persuaded that there 
were good reasons for this conviction, could 
they only be worthily set forth. 

I have always been of the faith also, that 
truth of every kind must have marks of its 
own ; and that, intrinsically, it must be as dis- 
tinguishable from fable as light from darkness, 
as the work of God from the work of man, as 
Nature from Art and Artifice. 

Strong in this persuasion, after I was settled 
in the Christian ministry, I resumed, as I say, 
the study of the Four Gospels. Since, amidst 
endless confusion and conflict of opinions, 
Jesus of Nazareth has always been recognized 
by his followers, as the supreme authority in 
regard to Christian doctrines, I desired, first of 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 9 

all, to discover what he was. Accordingly, my 
attention was mainly given to the Four Ac- 
counts of his Life and Teachings. Taking 
them in hand as mere human compositions, 
and as I would any other books, I endeavored 
to examine them as if they were then for the 
first time placed before me, with freedom and 
with candor, chiefly desirous to determine, not 
what mistakes or contradictions they may con- 
tain, but, the probable existence of mistakes 
and contradictions being conceded, how much 
of truth there is in these records.^ In the en- 

* It is hardly necessary to say, that since I was of age to 
take interest in such inquiries, I have never been able to 
entertain the idea of the miraculous inspiration of the writers 
of the New Testament, or indeed of any portion of the Bible, 
— an idea which owes its existence to ignorance or oversight 
of obvious and undeniable facts. As for example: For more 
than a thousand years the Scriptures were perpetuated, not 
by means of this comparatively accurate instrument of trans- 
mission, the art of printing, but by the very imperfect and 
fallible method of transcription. Of course they were liable 
to countless errors, and they show these errors (of trans- 
cribers) on every page. I question whether there be a dozen 
consecutive words in the New Testament that read the same 
in all the hundreds of MSS. which have been collated. The 



10 THOUGHTS ON 

deavor to ascertain the truth concerning Jesus 
of Nazareth, whether it should prove much or 
little, I have aimed to put out of view, as much 
as possible, popular opinions and doctrines, all 
disputed and disputable points, and, to use the 
words of the wise and liberal Jortin, " to reduce 
things to the venerable Christianity of the New 
Testament."^ 

various readings amount to some hundreds of thousands, — an 
alarming fact, bj the way, only to those who stickle for the 
inspiration of the letter. (Amidst all these literal variations, 
the sense remains substantially the same in all the MSS.) 
But if these books were originally penned by the dictation of 
the Holy Spirit, it is absolutely impossible now to determine 
with absolute certainty which is the original and inspired 
reading. Is it to be imagined that the Holy Spirit interposed 
in the composition of the Scriptures, but took no care to pro- 
tect them from influences which were certain to make that 
interposition worthless ? But I am not going to discuss the 
question in regard to the Inspiration of the Scriptures. I am 
writing for those who are prepared to regard the narratives of 
the Life of Jesus as human compositions, to be dealt with as 
we deal with all other books when the aim is to ascertain their 
contents. 

^ ^' As the opposers of the Gospel have frequently had re- 
course to arguments ad hominem^ and have taken advantage 
from modern systems, and from the writings of divines of this 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 11 

After delivering courses of week-day evening 
lectures on the Four Gospels for four consecu- 
tive winters, I published, in 1836, a small vo- 
lume entitled, "Remarks on the Four Grospels,'^ 
in which. I gave some of the results of my 
studies. Two years afterwards this work was 
republished in a much enlarged form with 
such numerous additions as justified the adop- 
tion of a new title for the work. It was called, 
"Jesus and his Biographers.'' After an interval 
of twelve years, in 1850, I published "A His- 
tory of Jesus ;'' and, in 1853, a new edition of 
this work, with a brief introduction and a few 
notes. In this last volume, as in the works that 
preceded it, my purpose was to make the New 
Testament history self-evident; to show, in 
the life of Jesus, the unmistakable marks of 
reality. 

And now, as I look back to those publica- 

or that persuasion, so the defenders of Revelation have often 
found themselves under the necessity of reducing things to 
the venerable Christianity of the New Testament, and of ad- 
venturing no farther, and of declaring the rest as not essential 
to the cause and to the controversy." — Remarks on EccL 
Hist. Preface, 



12 THOUGHTS ON 

tions, how very defective do they appear ! How 
far short do they fall of an adequate statement 
of the truth ! Gould I only do justice to my 
own convictions ! My present endeavor is to 
supply, to some extent, the deficiencies of my 
previous attempts. I return to the subject with 
an interest which has lost none of its keenness, 
and which knows no weariness. I would speak 
out my thoughts of Christ utterly. Whether I 
succeed in communicating them to others, the 
bare attempt will be its own bountiful reward. 
I shall not embarrass myself by undertaking to 
write system-wise.^ The subject itself has no- 

' '' There is an order of imperfect intellects, under which 
mine must be content to rank. . . . The owners of the sort of 
faculties I allude to, have no pretences to much clearness or 
precision in their ideas, or in their manner of expressing 
them. Their intellectual wardrobe (to confess fairly) has few 
whole pieces in it. They are content with fragments and 
scattered pieces of truth. She presents no full front to them, 
— a feature or a side-face at the most. Hints and glimpses, 
germs and crude essays at a system, is the utmost they pre- 
tend to. They beat up a little game, peradventure, and leave 
it to knottier heads, more robust constitutions, to run it down. 
. . . They seldom wait to mature a proposition, but e'en bring 
it to market in the green ear. They delight to impart their 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 13 

thing systematic in it. There has always been 
much talk of the Christian Scheme. Never was 
phrase so entirely out of place. Jesus had no 
scheme. It was no form of thought that he 
constructed. It was a Spirit that he breathed, 
a Life that he lived, free, genial, spontaneous. 
He dealt, not in carefully elaborated arguments, 
but in affirmations, that found their fullest ex- 
pressions in his being, and which thus come to 
the understanding through the heart. 

I lay down, therefore, no plan to be filled 
out. Whatever unity there may be in the exe- 
cution of this work, must come of itself. I 
shall endeavor not to repeat myself, at least in 
form. I please myself with the hope that others 
will find satisfaction in what gives me ever fresh 
delight. 

I suppose that much that I shall offer will be 

defective discoveries as they arise, without waiting for their 
full development. They are no systematizers, and would but 
err more in attempting it." — C. Lamb, May I not quote 
these words almost as much for the pleasure of quoting them 
as for the sake of entering a plea for the rambling character 
of the following pages, without a thought of arrogating any 
peculiar fellowship with the fine genius that penned them? 

2 



14 THOUGHTS on 

offensive to orthodox believers. I am sorry for 
that. But I beg leave to say to all such, who 
may chance to open this book, that it is written, 
not for them, but for those whom the orthodox 
creeds, so far from satisfying, have repelled 
from the subject altogether, and before whom 
the alternative lies, not between such views as 
are here presented and the popular representa- 
tions of Christianity, but between these views 
and none. 



I DO not consider that I regard the Man of 
l^azareth with the admiring reverence that he 
may justly claim. Far is it from my thoughts 
to imagine that I have found, and that I duly 
value, all the treasures of truth and beauty that 
are, to use the pregnant phrase of Paul, "hid- 
den in Christ." My reverence for him, I well 
know, is very weak. It is, as yet, but in the 
bud. Were it all that it should be, I should be 
a man sanctified and inspired by a friendship 
the most ennobling. 

And yet faint as is my veneration for him. 



TUB LIFE OF JESUS. 15 

how seldom do I find any who speak of him as 
he should be spoken of; any who appear cor- 
dially to sympathize with even my inadequate 
appreciation of him ! Kot that he is not spoken 
of in the most exalted terms. The strongest 
possible language of love and homage is 
lavished upon him. But it is easy to see that 
it is, to a great extent, formal. It has little that 
is genial in it. It is without discrimination, 
without an intelligent perception of his per- 
sonal qualities. It is mere hearsay ; the hollow 
echo of tradition and conformity. It is not in- 
spired by any personal acquaintance with him. 
How could it be otherwise ? At the hazard 
of seeming arrogant, I avow my conviction that 
I have myself caught, through the thick mists 
of superstition that have been gathering round 
him for long ages, a glimpse of his actual per- 
son. Dim as it is, it makes my heart so burn 
within me, at times, that my persuasion is irre- 
sistible that it is a true vision and no illusion. 
But how have I obtained it? By the long study 
of years, by the possession of peculiar opportu- 
nities, and by striving to free my mind from all 
those prejudices of early education, which so 



16 THOUGHTS ON 

eifectuall}' prevent us from seeing with our own 
eyes. 

As then the little light that I have found has 
been caught in this way, — by long and earnest 
study, — how can it be expected that others, 
who'have given the subject no special attention, 
and who have been necessarily preoccupied with 
very different things, should have any vivid 
personal idea of Jesus of Is"azareth ; most espe- 
cially, when for ages. Error has been weaving 
its web all over the history of his life so thickly, 
that the simplicity of the narrative is no longer 
perceived, and the narrative itself has almost 
ceased to be legible ; and this thick network of 
error has been cherished as sacred truth, and, 
generation after generation, men have been 
educated to regard it so religiously, that the 
influence of the error continues to trammel 
them greatly, long after the error itself has 
been renounced by their understandings. The 
paralyzing pressure continues to be felt after 
the weight has been thrown off. 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 17 

This subject does not command any earnest 
attention even in the religious world, as it is 
called. I do not find any persons who are 
really interested in examining the History of 
Christ — pursuing the study with a strong cu- 
riosity, and in the full belief that there is yet 
a great deal more light to break forth from it. 
It seems to be settled in the general mind that 
we know nearly all about it that is ever to be 
known, that there is little or nothing left to be 
explored. 

When I perceive how little of intelligent 
interest is shown in this study, I am sometimes 
led to ask myself whether I do not exaggerate 
its importance, whether it really have the worth 
I ascribe to it, whether it lie in the nature of 
the case that it should command any wide and 
deep interest. And then I ask also, whether 
they may not have reason on their side, who, 
wearied out with the disputation that has af- 
flicted the world in regard to Christ, and, 
despairing of anything like satisfaction, appear 
virtually to- say: "What is the use? Let us 
give over the attempt to know the precise truth 
concerning him." They have made up their 



18 THOUGHTS ON 

minds, apparently, to let his memory die out. 
They would fain dismiss the idea of him alto- 
gether, dim and confused as it is, as a. thing 
which the world is outgrowing, and as no 
longer competent to meet any human wants. 
Indeed, to numbers of intelligent and not light- 
minded persons, the subject has become a very 
Gorgon's head. Present it before them, and 
they are instantly turned into stone. They 
have not a thought to utter about it. 

But I cannot sympathize with this indiffer- 
ence, or this despair, much as there is to pro- 
duce them. I know and freely concede that a 
false theology has given a false importance to 
Jesus Christ, assigning him such a position 
that, not only has the one Infinite Father been 
hidden from human sight, but man, man him- 
self, has been superseded. Transferring to 
Christ his own incommunicable responsibility, 
man has lost faith in his own competency to 
see and think for himself But this is the in- 
fluence of a false representation of the Man of 
Nazareth. Rightly understood, he does not 
hide the Infinite Goodness, he illustrates it. He 
does not overpower men, he inspires them. He 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 19 

breaks their chains, and invites them to a larger 
freedom. But, without reference to the in- 
fluence he exerts, I cannot endure to think that 
such a person as Jesus has lived only to be mis- 
represented, living and dead, only to be wran- 
gled about for long ages; and now, at last, 
without ever having been, since the Apostolic 
age, really known as he was, to be spoken of 
with a patronizing air, as if he were on the 
whole a wonderful man for his time, but had 
better now be dismissed as behind the age. 
The idea ! how long and w^earily does he wait 
for an age to come in sight of him ! Mankind 
cannot be so ignoble as this treatment of him 
would imply. Multitudes there are, I doubt 
not, who would leap to do him honor, were he 
seen in his true character. 

In the name of all that is just, let him not 
vanish away before we have at least made an 
earnest effort to do him justice. Let us try 
sincerely, and without fear, to see him as he 
was in simple truth. Perhaps we shall discover 
a greatness in him beyond what, with all our 
exaggerations, we have ever yet dreamed. At 
all events let us be just to him, and strive to see 



20 THOUGHTS ON 

him as lie was. So much is surely due to a 
character so extraordinary. After we have ar- 
rived at some fair estimate of him, then, if 
there be any in whom he creates no new senti- 
ment of greatness and truth, in heaven's name, 
let them part with company with him, and go 
their way without the inspiration of his fellow- 
ship. But so long as the memories of the great 
and good are the world's most precious posses- 
sions, the perennial fountains of its deepest life, 
of all that have ever lived, let us not consent 
that Jesus of ]!^azareth shall be forever neglected 
or misunderstood. 

I would have it distinctly seen that it is 
chiefly for the sake of simple justice and honor, 
that I now plead for a full recognition of Jesus 
Christ. I am not speaking, in these pages, in 
the interest of any theological system whatever, 
or because I consider him to be necessary to the 
religion of our time and place. I desire to 
study him withoat reference to the exigencies 
of any existing mode of religious faith, or to 
any relation he may be believed to sustain to 
the salvation of men. I wish to see him as he 
was. So much, at least, is due to him and to 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 21 

ourselves. I have no aim now bej^ond the pay- 
ment of this debt. 



The tendency of mankind to deify personal 
greatness is so strong, and has shown itself so 
unfavorable to individual independence, so con- 
ducive to mental bondage, and in the case of 
Christ in particular, that some minds appear to 
be afraid to dwell, as I propose, upon the per- 
sonality of Jesus, lest, magnifying it unduly, 
they should be led themselves, or should lead 
others, back again into the old error. But does 
it not argue a mental weakness of the very 
same sort that we dread, a want of mental self- 
dependence, when we forego the enjoyment of 
a truth from a fear that it may be abused, to 
say nothing of the insensibility which it evinces 
to be indifferent to the great and the good? 
When w^e estimate them aright, there is, not 
fear but love, not cowardice but courage, not 
weakness but strength, the inspiration of the 
Highest, in their communion. 



22 THOUGHTS ON 

And especially should Jesus Christ be tho- 
roughly studied, and as accurately as possible 
known, since, as I conceive, we have such sin- 
gularly rare means of knowing him, if we will 
only approach the study of him with the free- 
dom and fairness which he loved, and upon 
which he so generously relied. 

Very brief, indeed, are the accounts of him 
that have come down to us, — mere sketches, 
put together with so little regard to order, that 
it is impossible to say how long his public life 
lasted, — collections of anecdotes, for the most 
part told with exceeding brevity. And yet such 
as they are, they let us into the personal cha- 
racter of Jesus in a manner the rhost remark- 
able. I do not believe that there has ever 
existed a person, of whom, without having any 
immediate personal knowledge of him, we can 
form so vivid an idea as of Jesus of K"azareth. 

This one fact that, in the providence of 
heaven, the memory of Jesus has been pre- 
served in the world as the memory of no other 
person has been preserved, with an unequalled 
distinctness, — does it not prove how valuable 
his memory is? Its worth is shown by its 



TII3 LIFE OF JESUS. 23 

being perpetuated in such clearness of outline, 
in such freshness of coloring. And this too in 
the natural course of things, without any spe- 
cial interposition, either in the composition or 
in the preservation of the accounts of him 
which have been published throughout the 
world in almost every tongue. 

I cannot imagine how anything could be 
more entirely in the natural order of things 
than the IsTew Testament narratives were, as I 
regard them, both in their origin and in the 
way in which they have been perpetuated. 
When, precisely, they were written cannot be 
determined with certainty. They made their 
appearance, under the circumstances of the 
case, as a matter of course. Supposing such a 
person as Jesus to have had an existence, it 
seems to me that, sooner or later, just such ac- 
counts, as we have of him, must have made 
their appearance. They are just what was to 
be expected. It could not well be otherwise, 
things being left to take their course, but that, 
after a time, and before all the personal friends 
of Jesus, or all their friends, disappeared from 
the world, some written records of him, of his 



24 THOUGHTS ON 

sayings and acts, would rise into importance. 
Such a life as his could not possibly fail to find 
expression in the literature of the world. His 
friends, however, were not, and from the 
obvious facts of the case, it is evident could not 
have been, educated men. Their literary quali- 
fications for the work of his biography- were 
exceedingly limited. They had no literary cha- 
racter to make or to sustain, nor any know- 
ledge of rhetorical rules to guide them. Con- 
sequently, as the whole style and structure of 
the Records show, the work was done with the 
utmost simplicity of design, with no thought 
on the part of the writers but to put into words, 
as well as they were able, their honest impres- 
sions. So much, at least, may be said of the 
first Three Gospels. Of the Fourth Gospel, I 
have a brief word to say by-and-by. Of the 
first three, it may be said without qualification, 
and of the fourth also, to a considerable extent, 
that the result is, that narratives are to be 
found in these books, constituting the sub- 
stance of them ; narratives which, artless as 
they are, — and they are as artless as the talk of 
children, — furnish us with the means of form- 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 25 

ing a wonderfully distinct idea of him, the story 
of whose life they tell. 

So it appears that his life had a natural truth, 
so obvious and impressive that neither was any 
special agency needed to prevent its being lost 
or to perpetuate its memory ; nor, in order that 
it should be reported correctly, were any pecu- 
liar qualifications required beyond a certain 
honesty of mind. It was of that quality, so 
congenial to IS^ature, so surcharged with her 
own life, that she could not let it die, although 
there was no ready scribe at hand to record it, 
and no one seems to have thought of any- 
thing like a formal record of it until years after 
the disappearance of Jesus from the earth. It 
was in such perfect accord with the truth of 
things, that all things, by a natural affinity, 
took it up spontaneously, and floated it onward 
on the stream of time. It was as natural for it 
to continue, as it was for it to be, originally. 
Once in existence, it instantly became a living 
portion of the world's history. And it no more 
needed any special aid from God or man, in 
order that it should be perpetuated, than this 

3 



26 THOUGHTS ox 

globe requires any interposing and added force 
to maintain it on its annual way. 

In this fact I recognize decisive evidence of 
the special worth of Jesus Christ to the world. 
The idea of him, rendered as it is with such 
rare freshness in the New Testament, must be 
vital, or it would never have taken such a hold, 
stronger than adamant, upon the world, never 
have so fixed itself with such distinctness and 
prominence in the world's history; especially 
when it had such obstacles to overcome, moun- 
tains of ignorance, rivers and oceans of preju- 
dice, partition-walls heaven-high, of custom, 
temperament, and language, dividing the na- 
tions. "What was it that I just now heard from 
my window? A little colored child in the 
street singing a hymn about Jesus, the Saviour. 
Thus far away from remote, obscure l^azareth, 
centuries back, out of the depths of the Past, 
has his name come. 

I no longer fear that, in studying his life and 
character, I am carried away by a fancy, as- 
cribing to his history an exaggerated impor- 
tance. The fact of its having been written and 
preserved as it has been without any extraordi- 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 27 

nary intervention, I interpret as the well-nigli 
articulate testimony of N"ature and Providence 
to its worth. They claim it for their own. It 
is theirs. And as theirs, ours. 



For long ages the study has been to represent 
him in contrast with Nature, and in opposition 
to her. It has been, and still is, everywhere 
thought to be essential to the vindication of his 
authority, to prove that he was a supernatural 
being, in the sense of exceptional and anoma- 
lous. His acts are described as miracles, mira- 
cles being defined as departures from natural 
order, or violations thereof. He is represented 
as differing from every other intelligent being 
on earth in nature as well as in degree. 

The consequence is such as we see all around 
us. Jesus has become a nondescript being. He 
is out of the sphere of our intelligent apprehen- 
sions, out of the reach of all genial human ap- 
preciation. Thus represented, he has ceased to 
be of flesh and blood, and has faded away into 
a vision vast but dim — but little more than a 



28 THOUGHTS ON 

name. We extend our arms to embrace him, 
and nothing real meets onr grasp. 

My purpose is directly the reverse. I seek to 
reinstate him in Nature, fully. I would show 
that, while he is new, original, in some most 
important respects unprecedented, he is a tho- 
roughly natural human being, in nothing at 
variance with Nature, but always and in all 
respects, even in regard to those great gifts 
which are peculiar to him, '' subject to the law 
of her consistency." Indeed, of all who have 
ever lived, I hold him to be the most pro- 
foundly natural, the fullest illustration of the 
genius of Nature, of her highest laws, of her 
most occult forces. And, viewing him thus, I 
hold it to be indescribably interesting that he 
should be seen as he is. How can we spare so 
grand an illustration of the import of Nature ! 
We may spare the sun in heaven as well. He 
is a sun in the empyreum. 

When it shall be made clearly to appear that 
he came and lived in conformity with natural 
laws, not in violation of them, who can estimate 
the benefits that must accrue ! How much will 
be gained for him, for Christianity, and for the 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 29 

progress of human thought ! It will be equiva- 
lent to establishing on an impregnable founda- 
tion the reality of his history, to show its con- 
sonance with ITature ; since truth alone consorts 
with that. And for the enlargement of the 
human mind the advantage will be, that the 
wonderful facts of the history of Christ, which 
now stand apart by themselves, as barren excep- 
tions under the name of miracles, will be re- 
ceived as new and most expressive natural facts; 
giving us significant hints of a high spiritual 
philosophy, a philosophy of Life and of Death, 
of matter and of spirit, and of the mutual rela- 
tions of these two. 



How completely a mechanical philosophy has 
unhallowed Nature, how it has despoiled the 
great Temple of all its religious symbols, dis- 
placing its soul-inspiring harmonies with the 
monotony of a huge mechanism of blind laws, 
is disclosed by the fact that men deny the possi- 
bility of any certain communication from the 
Highest, except by a method that shall be seen 
to be a departure from the method of Nature. 

3* 



30 THOUGHTS ON 

As I look upon Christ, he comes, not in vio- 
lation, but in the order, of Nature ; not to sus- 
pend her laws, but to observe them; not to 
interrupt, but to reveal the harmony of things. 
He comes in the fulness of her genius, not an 
interposed, but a natural and all-reconciling 
Fact. And, in the light of his presence, the 
Universe is no longer a complication of blind 
mechanical forces, but slowly, grandly, the 
Diorama changes, and there rises all around us 
a majestic Sanctuary, not made with hands, 
wherein angels are ceaselessly ascending and 
descending in beneficent ministries, and glad 
tidings of love and hope sound evermore. 



I AM aware that I appear to many to handle 
the New Testament histories with an unautho- 
rized freedom; at one time rejecting passages 
and incidents in a ' very arbitrary manner, 
merely, as it has been said, to suit a very fan- 
ciful preconceived theory ; at another time, lay- 
ing the greatest stress upon some very slight 
circumstance, or a mere turn of expression. 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 31 

I submit the following considerations in justi- 
fication of the method which I observe. 

1. Any one, who examines the Four Gospels 
with any attention, cannot fail to perceive that 
they are put together with very little care. 
The carelessness which marks these books, and 
of which numerous evidences might be ad- 
duced, I consider as resulting from and mani- 
festing the unsuspecting confidence of truth. 
But however caused, or whatever it may indi- 
cate, it is a very obvious feature of these narra- 
tives. 

2. It is equally undeniable, that for centuries 
they were perpetuated in manuscript, and they 
have, consequently, come to read so variously, 
that we cannot be perfectly sure, in any case, 
that we have the precise words of the original 
records. 

These things being considered, I have no 
hesitation in rejecting passages and incidents 
which are clearly at variance with the pervading 
spirit and the plainest facts of the history. So 
much, briefly, for the grounds upon which I 
hold myself authorized to reject certain passages 
here and there. 



32 THOUGHTS ON 

But, since the Gospels are constructed with- 
out care, and the genuineness of the language 
is more or less uncertain, why do not these con- 
siderations, which have weight with me in the 
rejection of passages, have the same force in 
preventing me from laying stress upon minute 
particulars, upon a phrase, perhaps, or a word ? 
For very plain reasons : 

1. Because, however careless the Gospels, 
and however uncertain the original words, we 
should, nevertheless, scrutinize the minutest 
details, since, as frequent experience shows, 
truth is discovered, and falsehood detected by 
the very smallest accidents, which, being un- 
designed, have a weight far beyond that of a 
thousand formal witnesses. 

2. And not only for this reason : because the 
smallest fact, a mere word, may furnish a clue 
to the truth, should we weigh every word ; but 
also because the very carelessness, with which 
these writings are put together, affords the 
strongest presumption that any little details 
that are mentioned, are mentioned only be- 
cause they are true. Whether they are true or 
not, must be determined by their accordance 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. Sd 

with the pervading spirit and the plainest facts 
of the history. The Gospels are, to a most re- 
markable degree, unstudied ; by which I mean, 
that particulars are stated therein, evidently not 
to serve a purpose or to make out a case, but 
simply because they were true. They struck 
and impressed the minds of the spectators, and 
so they came to be transcribed into the records. 
There is no other reason why they should have 
been recorded. And, since they were of this 
impressive nature, they must have had a forcible 
significance at the time, a vital connection with 
the main fact of which they were the par- 
ticulars. To my mind it is clear, that the 
events recorded in the Gospels, almost in the 
literal sense of the word, recorded themselves. 
With a vividness beyond everything of the kind 
that I know of in human history, they stamped 
themselves on the minds of men ; not always, 
never perhaps in any instance making a com- 
plete impression, but yet almost always leaving 
the body or shape of some one or a few circum- 
stances or features, and these sometimes not 
the most prominent, so sharply defined, that 
from one particular thus given, however mi- 



34 THOUGHTS ON 

nute, we may infer the whole event. I ask 
attention to the following instances in illustra- 
tion of what I say. 

1. The direction of Jesus to the bystanders 
to go to the assistance of Lazarus, when he ap- 
peared at the entrance of the tomb, ''bound 
hand and foot in the grave-clothes:" "Loose 
hhn^ and let hivi go^'' is, in itself, a minute cir- 
cumstance. There always seemed to me, when 
as a child I read this account, to be a sudden de- 
scent here to a very small particular. "Why did 
Jesus give this direction ? Or why did the nar- 
rator think it worth recording? These ques- 
tions are more than answered, when, supposing 
Lazarus to have actually appeared staggering 
in his shroud, we bring into view the effect 
which such an apparition must have had on 
those present. They stood gazing there, in un- 
utterable amazement, bereft of all presence of 
mind, and it was natural that Jesus should have 
recalled them to themselves, and bade them go 
and help Lazarus. Can any one fail to see how 
this brief incident attests the reality of the 
scene? 

2. The retaining of the very words of Jesus 



TUB LIFE OF JESUS. 35 

in the case of the restoration of the little 
daughter of Jairus, '^ Talitha cumi;'' and in the 
instance of the deaf man, " Uphphatha ;'' and of 
the precise exclamation of Mary, when she first 
recognized Jesus on the morning of his resur- 
rection, " Rahhoni ;'' all translatable and im- 
mediately translated, is to my mind wondrously 
in accord with truth, and to be accounted for 
only by the reality of the circumstances which 
attended these utterances. {Jesus and his Bio- 
graphers.) 

3. In the account^ given of the blind beggar, 
Bartimseus, whose sight Jesus restored, we are 
told that when Jesus stopped and bade them 
bring to him the beggar, who was calling aloud 
and entreating his pity, the poor man, " easting 
aivay his garment^'" rose and went to Jesus. 
These few words, which I italicize, — do they not 
reveal the natural and intense emotion of the 
blind man ? 

4. To mention only one other instance in 
point. When, upon the departure of the 
wealthy young man who came running to 
Jesus, asking what he should do to inherit 

* Mark x, 4G-52. 



36 THOUGHTS ON 

eternal life, Jesus declared that it was impos- 
sible for the rich to enter the Divine kingdom, 
the kingdom of the self sacrificing ; and when 
the disciples were exceedingly amazed, because 
the kingdom they were looking for was to 
abound in riches, and when they expressed 
their astonishment, exclaiming, ''Who then 
can be saved?" i. e., Who then can be admitted 
into the kingdom, if there are to be no rich 
men there? it is recorded in the first Gospel 
that Jesus ''beheld'' them; and, in the second, 
that Jesus, " looking upon tJiem^ saith, &c/' Now 
I infer, from the fact that his look on this occa- 
sion is thus particularly mentioned in two of 
the Gospels and yet with a variation, that it 
must have been of so impressive a character 
that it imprinted itself upon the minds of those 
on whom it was fixed, and could not be forgotten. 
But it is needless to multiply examples of 
this sort. The Gospels are full of them. And 
they stamp the records so deeply with the im- 
press of reality, that, for my own part, I am 
reconciled to all the obscurity in which the 
origin and history of the Gospels are wrapt. 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 37 

In studying the New Testament history in 
this manner, I seem to myself to be endeavor- 
ing to restore some grand old work of Art, 
a magnificent picture by some great master. 
In one part, it is covered with the dust and 
dimness of time. In another, rude hands have 
distorted it with their false drawing, or be- 
daubed it with barbarous color. The world has 
insisted upon hanging it upside down, in a bad 
light, and out of the reach of the eye ; its dis- 
figurements have been mistaken for beauties, 
and all honest examination has been denounced 
as sacrilege. Nevertheless, here and there, by 
such criticism as I am able to use, I discover a 
hand, a foot, an eye, drawn to the life ; or, it 
may be, a noble sweeping line, or a majestic 
fold of a garment, or a gleam of color, — all 
satisfying me that there is a masterpiece under- 
neath, some day to be restored in its complete- 
ness, or, so far as it was completed originally, 
to witch the world with a vision of immortal 
beauty. 



The attempts which I have made in previous 
4 



38 THOUGHTS ON 

publications to set forth my views of what are 
called the miracles of Jesus, were very imper- 
fect, owing in a considerable degree to some 
obscurity in my own mind. My thoughts on 
this subject have since become clearer; and I 
trust I shall now be able to make myself better 
understood. 

I set no value upon the miracles of the New 
Testament, considered as departures from the 
order of nature. So far from contending for 
them, in this sense, I do not believe that such 
things as miracles, thus defined, are possible. I 
hold the idea of a suspension or violation of the 
laws of Nature, to be essentially incredible. 
Although the word miracle is constantly used 
in this sense, no such idea is expressed by it, 
etymologically considered. According to the 
derivation of the word, a miracle is simply a 
wonder, nothing more. A thing may be won- 
derful without being a suspension of the laws 
of Nature. In the primary sense of the term, 
all things, the most common and natural, the 
laws of Nature themselves, are miraculous, and 
miraculous, not only in the sense of being won- 
derful, but also as they manifest the presence in 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 89 

Nature of an unknown, supernatural, or rather, 
supersensuous power. So far from rejecting 
miracles in this sense, I believe in nothing else. 



But not only is there nothing in the deriva- 
tion of the word that requires us to consider the 
events to which the term is applied in the New 
Testament, as violations of the order of Nature, 
I am at a loss to understand how we can pro- 
nounce a fact to be a departure from natural 
laws without first knowing all those laws. But 
who presumes to know all the laws of Nature ? 
Until we do know them all, we cannot assert 
that any fact violates them. It may be a very 
singular fact, such as has never been known 
before. Nevertheless we cannot know that it 
involves a departure from natural order. The 
presumption is, that it is directly the reverse. 
It may seem to violate what we consider the 
laws of Nature ; just as the fact that water in- 
creases in bulk, by being frozen, violates the 
law that regulates the freezing of all other 
bodies, and by which they are contracted in size 



40 THOUGHTS ON 

with the diminution of their heat. But there is 
here no real, but only an apparent, violation of 
natural laws. It is not Nature that is tran- 
scended, but only our very limited knowledge 
of Nature. So long at least as our knowledge 
is comprehended within such very narrow 
bounds, how can we presume to pronounce a 
fact a miracle in the sense of a suspension of 
the natural order of things ?^ 

But even were it admissible thus to pro- 

* "In all apparent anomalies, the inductive pliilosopher 
will fall back on the primary maxim that it is always more 
prohahletliat events of an unaccountable and marvellous cliar- 
acter are parts of some great fixed order of causes unlmown 
to us, than that any real interruption occurs^ — [Essays on 
the Spirit of the Inductive Philosophy , c&c, by the Rev. Baden 
Poivell.) In the same work (p. 471), Professor Powell con- 
demns Hugh Miller's '' Judaical" theology, because it does 
not recognize the fact that " the great principle of natural 
laws and the order of physical causes, is as entirely the ema- 
nation of the Supreme Mind, as any supposed intervention 
could be, and, in fact, the only true proof of it^ It is to be 
regretted, by the way, that the Oxford Professor has not men- 
tioned the names of a few of the " many eminent and orthodox 
divines" to whom he alludes (p. 473), as regarding miracles, 
not as " interruptions,'' but " as instances of the observance of 
some more comprehensive laws unknown to us." 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 41 

nounce upon facts, and to distinguish miracles, 
I cannot perceive how outward miracles, ad- 
dressed to the senses, can authorize moral state- 
ments, verbal propositions. I cannot see how 
any external demonstration of power can make 
a thing true to me, which has no evidence, in 
itself, of its being true. Power to produce the 
most wonderful physical effects instantaneously, 
does not imply or prove truth. Were a man to 
come to me, commanding me to lie, steal, and 
commit murder, in the name of God, what 
miracles, so called, that he might work, could 
attest his authority to enjoin these crimes as 
my sacred duties ? "What would it avail him, 
although he should turn the earth out of its 
orbit ? I should suppose that either he was in 
league with evil spirits, or had obtained com- 
mand of some occult science. Either of these 
suppositions would be far more probable than 
that he had authority from God to impose upon 
me immoral obligations. 

It is not therefore because I need or desire 
miraculous attestations, commonly so called, to 
the authority of Christ, that I set a great value 

4^ 



42 THOUGHTS ON 

upon the wonderful works that were done by 
him. 



The value of the extraordinary works attri- 
buted to Christ lies in this, that, as things done 
by him, as his acts, they sustain a vital relation 
to his character, which they most strikingly 
illustrate, showing us the essential quality of 
his spirit. In my view, they are identified 
with his personal being; as, in the nature of 
things, the acts and the remarkable acts espe- 
cially, of a man, are part and portion of the man 
himself. The conduct discloses the character. 

This being premised, I cannot see how we 
can dream of ascertaining the distinctive char- 
acter of Christ, while we leave out of our esti- 
mate of him the most extraordinary things 
attributed to him. With just as much, nay, 
with even more propriety, might we undertake 
to leave out of view his precepts and parables. 
These illustrate his truth and wisdom. But 
actions, it is proverbial, speak louder than 
words, and are much more satisfactory signs of 
what a man is. It is in this respect that the 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 43 

wonderful works of Christ create in me the 
deepest interest, a very great curiosity to ascer- 
tain what they really were, to know all about 
them that is to be known. 



The common idea is that they are valuable 
mainly as displays of Almighty Power, suspend- 
ing its own laws in order to attest a Divine au- 
thority in Christ. Whereas, to my mind, their 
chief interest lies, not at all in the power which 
they exhibit, but in their moral quality, in the 
motive that prompted them. They have a very 
decided moral character, and the motive that 
prompted them becomes plain upon examina- 
tion. I find them to be as truly penetrated by 
his spirit as his limbs were animated by his 
blood. In and through them I catch sight of 
the God-like greatness of his personal charac- 
ter, and of an unselfishness as beautiful as the 
same quality illustrated by his cross. 

It is not at all as demonstrations of mere 
power that I admire what are known as his 
miracles. Demonstrations of mere power are 



44 THOUGHTS ON 

all aronud me, at all times, in all the aspects of 
Nature, in my own body, in the inscrutable 
miracles of sight, of articulate speech, and of 
hearing, and of the communication of thought 
by means of these, in the fact that I sit here at 
this moment, inscribing these characters on 
this page, with the idea of communicating my 
thoughts to other minds distant and unknown. 
Such familiar instances are just as wondrous in- 
dications of a power above and beyond what 
is visible, as any fact recorded in the New Tes- 
tament. It is not, therefore, for their physical 
power that I prize the miracles of Jesus. 



I VALUE the wonderful works of Christ because 
they disclose to me his character, because they 
express his spirit. 

The character of Christ is the exposition of 
my religion, my Christianity. It is my Confes- 
sion of Faith. As far as I am able to see, it 
was the only religion of the first disciples ; it 
was all that they received from him. They 
were not instructed by him in any doctrines so 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 45 

called. All that he ever taught them, by word 
of mouth, was of the most informal character. 
I»[othing can possibly be more simple and inci- 
dental than his teachings. The sum of all that 
he taught them was, that they were to love God 
with their whole hearts, and one another as 
themselves. He taught them no theology. But 
there was one thing he did give them, one 
new thing: he inspired them with an enthu- 
siastic affection for himself. And this personal 
sentiment was the germ of a new religion in 
their hearts, sown there amidst a tangled 
growth of old religious prejudices and supersti- 
tions. In loving him, they loved what was true 
and generous. Their simple affection for him, 
which, it is most interesting to observe, he in- 
spired them with unconsciously, not so much 
by what he said and did as by what he was, 
and which grew in them without any effort on 
their part, without their being aware of it, be- 
came the central spring of their existence, sanc- 
tifying them and re-creating them. In one 
word, it was their Religion ; and a Religion of a 
Divine origin, the pure work of God, wrought 
in them without the conscious agency of any 
human will, either theirs or Christ's, 



46 THOUGHTS OX 

Multitudes since their time, multitudes now 
clierish a strong feeling about Christ. There is 
a great ado made about ''the love of Jesus." 
But it is a very different thing from the natural 
human affection felt for him by his first fiiends, 
and springing up and growing in them, just 
like the love that dwells among kindred. It is 
incoherent, mystical, when it is not cant. It 
does not spring from any intelligent perception 
of his personal traits. It is a zeal for a creed, 
for a church, for ''the religion of the fathers," 
or for the dogma of "the Atoning Sacrifice," of 
which the name of Jesus has become the sym- 
bol ; or for a social order and rights of property, 
which he is thought somehow to conserve. His 
name has long ceased to represent his personal 
qualities as a man. ^"ere "the love of Christ," 
on which so much stress is laid, the result of a 
clear insight into the generous attributes of his 
personal character, it is quite out of the Cjues- 
tion that those who cherished it could have 
been so exclusive, time-serving, and cruel, as 
Christians have been and are. 

The truth is, the personal character of Jesus 
has been lost to sight through the dogma of his 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 47 

Supreme Divinity, in the confounding idea of 
his Double Nature. The Unitarian denomina- 
tion has been based and formed upon a denial 
of the truth of these representations. It was 
necessary, in the course of things, that this 
denial should be made, as it has been made, 
with signal ability. But no denomination can 
long subsist on a denial. There is no religious 
life, no spiritual nutriment, to be derived from 
a negative. "We must have reasons for be- 
lieving, as well as for not believing. So strong 
is this necessity, that a tendency appears among 
liberal Christians to return to the positive 
grounds of orthodoxy. They are growing sensi- 
ble of the want of a faith that affirms. " Ice can 
make no conflagration." It is high time, there- 
fore, that we should affirm, — affirm the hu- 
manity of Christ clearly and broadly; lest, 
halting on a barren denial, we become entan- 
gled in the teasing shreds of the old dogma of 
his mystical nature, and be drawn back again 
into bondage to ''weak and beggarly elements.'* 
"When the personal character of Jesus emerges 
in its natural beauty from the clouds of super- 
stition in which it has been hid, then to us, as 



48 THOUGHTS ON 

to his first disciples, it will become a spring of 
all-purifying affection, a positive religion, exer- 
cising all our sensibilities, and contributing to 
that greatest of works, the regeneration of cha- 
racter. 



How wearisome is the sight of man's abortive 
attempts to make himself holy ! I have lost all 
confidence in them. Poor, ignorant, sinful 
creature that he is, he sets to work in good 
faith, and takes great pains to collect all sorts 
of spiritual machinery, doctrines, and creeds, 
and sacraments, '^ means of grace,'' as he calls 
them, and I know not what. He sets himself 
large tasks of self-denial and philanthropy and 
devotion. He goes to work with an energy one 
cannot but admire, building up, regardless of 
expense, huge Bible and Tract societies ; but, in 
and through it all, he is so keenly and sleep- 
lessly self-conscious, that, at every stage of the 
work, such an amount of self-conceit, like some 
poisonous gas, is generated, that the whole 
thing is spoiled through and through, and the 
result is most pitiable. The cheapest thing that 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 49 

he manufactures is better, of its kind, than his 
religion. It makes a great show and noise, — a 
perpetual grinding, but no grist. It has neither 
beauty that we should desire it, nor strength 
that we can lean upon. It inspires no respect. 
It can stand no test. The worst passions shiver 
it into atoms by their outbursts, or get control 
of it and make it subservient to their base pur- 
poses. 



How beautiful and how sure is the Divine 
method of making men good and religious ! 
Into a world full of ignorance and sin, men are 
sent, — one man at least appears, who, by his 
rare personal qualities, and by the mighty touch 
of a nature common to him and to all men, 
awakens reverence and faith, and makes the 
whole world kin. Only consider how much is 
done for men when there is created in them re- 
verence for what is venerable, and love of what 
is lovely. It is a good thing to be beloved, but 
to love is far better. Mark, too, how beauti- 
fully, beautifully because with the divine hu- 
mility of Nature, this sacred sentiment, when 

5 



50 THOUGHTS 0]^ 

once planted in the heart and growing there, a 
scion from the Tree of Life, bears fruit for the 
sustenance of a man's whole being; fruit, of 
which, when he once partakes, he will not hun- 
ger and thirst any more. In the increasing 
ardor of his affection, he forgets himself. He 
no longer officiously busies himself with his 
spiritual welfare ; and consequently, the Divine 
work goes on in him uninterrupted by his inter- 
meddling. So far from foolishly priding him- 
self upon the growth he is making in every 
grace, humility perhaps, whenever he looks at 
himself, it is only to be humbled indeed at the 
contrast between himself and the goodness 
which he is learning heartily to revere. Never- 
theless, he cannot learn to love what is pure 
without parting with his own impurities. He 
cannot reverence the large-minded and remain 
narrow. He cannot love love, and continue 
selfish. This is the way in which man is rege- 
nerated in truth, and to the very centre. It is not 
a speedy work, but it is genuine and sure. The 
most imposing instances of it are those poor 
fishermen of Galilee, who w^ere brought into 
personal acquaintance with the Man of Naza- 



THE LIFE OE JESUS. 51 

reth; and thereby, be it forever remembered, 
not so much by his saying and doing as by his 
being, were changed into renowned Apostles 
and martyrs of Eternal Truth. "What he was to 
them, he may be again to us all. In his per- 
sonal character, there is a natural spring of Reli- 
gion, perennial and refreshing to every soul of 
flesh. 



Certain it is, that the best things that we 
know of, the things that most nourish us, and 
are most powerful in giving life to the world, 
and in kindling man's aspirations, are the cha- 
racters of the great and good. These it is that 
' uphold and cherish' the world, and save men 
in the darkest times from the loss of great ideas 
and generous hopes. These it is, the great and 
good, whose names are the mighty spells which 
reanimate mankind when well-nigh borne down 
and vanquished in the great struggle of life. 

Among all noble human characters, the cha- 
racter of this wondrous Jewish youth shines 
pre-eminent in its great simplicity, simple in a 
new and still most natural beauty. Were the 



o2 THOUGHTS ON 

heavens to open over our heads, what vision 
could we behold there, which would give us 
such a sense of the Divine as comes to us 
through his human greatness ! 

Now, to this grand character of the Man of 
Nazareth, the singular acts ascribed to him are 
of indispensable importance, because they are 
its manifestations. They illustrate it. "What 
manner of man he was, — the quality of his in- 
terior being, is to be ascertained through what 
he did and his way of doing it. 



How do we know that the wonderful things 
related of Jesus actually happened? This is 
the great question. How do I satisfy myself 
that the miracles really occurred as they are 
represented ? 

To this inquiry, the first thing I have to say 
in reply is, that, if the acts ascribed to Jesus 
were not his acts at all, then they must be 
fabulous exaggerations, accretions that rapidly 
gathered from the wonder-loving atmosphere of 
the age around the simple truth, distorting and 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 53 

concealing it. And if they are fabrications of 
this sort, they do not illustrate him, neither can 
they. In this case, they resemble artificial 
flowers fastened by children upon a living bush. 
All very beautiful they may look to the chil- 
dren. But there is no natural connection be- 
tween them and the plant to which they are 
attached. The sap of that does not circulate in 
them. You can get no hint of the nature of 
the plant from an examination of these flowers. 
So I say, if the narratives of the miracles of 
Jesus are fictitious, they can be no illustrations 
of him. Or, if they are exaggerations so mon- 
strous that we cannot now ascertain the actual 
facts of the case, so far from illustrating his 
character, they will only betray their own false- 
hood by their obvious inconsistency with it. 

But the fact is, these narratives, rightly 
taken, do illustrate him. Improbable as these 
extraordinary events at first sight appear, they 
are found, upon a faithful examination, to be 
eminently characteristic of him. And it is this 
fact, that the miracles are not like the artificial 
flowers that I just now spoke of, but show very 
plain marks of being a natural growth, leaves 

6^ 



64 THOUGHTS ON 

and blossoms of the living tree with which they 
are connected, that proves that they really took 
place, being inseparable portions of his nature 
and history. 



Putting out of view all the miraculous parts 
of the history, taking only the teachings of 
Jesus, and those portions of the Records, which, 
stating nothing out of the ordinary course of 
things, are perfectly credible, and readily com- 
mand assent, we are able to form some general 
idea of him. "We see very clearly that he must 
have been a person of eminent wisdom and 
goodness. So much is admitted even by the 
most sceptical. 

ISTow, may we not use this general idea of 
him which the most cursory reading of the New 
Testament gives us, as a criterion by which to 
determine the truth or falsehood of the stories 
that are told of him ? 

"Whatever a man does, depicts the man on 
the minds of all beholders, and shows his 
quality. Everything that he does, alwaj^s has a 
certain consistency with all else of his doing. 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 55 

One and the same expression appears in every 
act. He cannot wholly disguise his looks or his 
gait. Accordingly, when any act or series of 
acts is attributed to one whom we know, we 
can at least tell, from what we know of him, 
whether it be like him. Now, so simple and 
elevated is the character of Jesus, as it may be 
gathered from the general tenor of his history, 
that it cannot be difficult to decide whether 
acts, so new and strange as the miracles, be in 
keeping with him or not ; whether they be like 
him, so much like him, that in them we recog- 
nize him. 

Suppose any one were to set himself at work 
to fabricate a variety of actions, and, describing 
them circumstantially and as done in the most 
public manner, like the miracles of the Kew 
Testament, should attribute them to some per- 
son with whose general traits of character we 
were already familiar. I say nothing of the 
difficulty of fabricating facts as various as the 
works recorded in the Gospels, and of keeping 
them consistent with one another in the midst 
of a great diversity of particulars; although 
this is a point not to be overlooked. But the 



56. THOUGHTS ON 

question now is : could such fabrications, even 
if they harmonized one with another, be mixed 
up with reality, and ascribed to an individual 
of known character, without our being able to 
decide whether it were like him to do such 
things ? 

Most especially would the facility of a deci- 
sion in such a case be increased, if the acts in 
question were of a peculiar kind, and, in the 
fabrication of them, the inventor had no prece- 
dents to go by. I think it would be absolutely 
impossible to interweave fictitious miracles into 
the life of a person of so simple and grand a 
character as Jesus of Nazareth, without pro- 
ducing an incongruity obvious to the most ordi- 
nary understanding. The Apocryphal Gospels 
prove as much. Two things, the most opposite 
to conceive of: the character of Jesus on the 
one hand, and the working of miracles on the 
other ; the former thoroughly natural, the latter 
to all appearances out of the course of Nature, 
were to be brought together, and so commin- 
gled that they should constitute one harmo- 
nious whole. This was the problem. This is 
the transcendent miracle which is believed to 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 57 

have been wrought in the rude narratives of the 
'New Testament, when it is maintained that the 
remarkable facts contained therein are fables. 



Suppose the miracles of Jesus to be mere 
fabrications. They were invented then in a 
superstitious and w^onder-loving age, for the 
sake of making him appear more remarkable. 
But is it conceivable that the passion for the 
marvellous, which, like all human passions, is 
blind to everything but its special object, could 
tamper in the slightest degree with the beau- 
tiful simplicity of his Life without deforming 
it ? Would not such fictions inevitably destroy 
its unity and naturalness ? Would not the bare 
idea of making him appear greater, by ascribing 
to him acts which he never performed, show at 
once that the real beauty of his character was 
not perceived ? And how could those who did 
not understand his character fabricate facts that 
should be in harmony with that character? 

What I say is this : the wonderful things 
which he is said to have done, so far from mar- 



58 THOUGHTS ON 

ring the symmetry of his being, do, with a few 
exceptions, most luminously illustrate its great- 
ness. They are in the most consummate har- 
mony with all his known and probable quali- 
ties. There is nothing that he said or did more 
strikingly characteristic of him than his mira- 
cles so called. ITo thing that is told of him 
shows him to us more distinctly. Indeed, were 
his miracles left out of view, we should lose the 
most impressive means of knowing what man- 
ner of person he was. I trust this will appear 
in the following pages. 



The miracles of Jesus being regarded, not as 
fables but as actual occurrences, the question 
arises: How were they wrought? By what 
means did he produce these astonishing ejffects? 

I answer, not by a power breaking through 
or suspending the laws of N"ature, but hy means 
of a natural gift. As he was endowed by 
l^ature with great sensibility and extraordinary 
quickness of apprehension, and clearness and 
depth of insight, as, indeed, we all come into 
life endowed with various powers, powers dif- 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 69 

fering in different individuals in degree and 
kind, but alike wonderful, alike miraculous^ in 
all, so was lie naturally endowed witli a power 
such as no other man has ever been known to 
possess. lie could heal the sick, restore sight 
to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and, under 
certain conditions, raise the recently dead, and 
all by a simple volition. The power of pro- 
ducing these effects instantaneously was, as I 
conceive, just as natural to him, just as much 
a part of his nature, as the power to speak, to 
hear, to move, is of ours. It was not a 
power that he had acquired. It was a faculty 
native to him. How it came to him he could 
not tell, nor whence ; save that, like all other 
power possessed by him or by any one, it was 
from God. He himself gave no other account 
of it. There was no other account of it to be 
given. The source of all power, whether ordi- 
nary or unusual, is God. The power of pro- 
ducing such striking effects by a brief act of the 
will was, in a word, the genius of Jesus. It 
came to him as it comes to a child to walk or 
to speak. It was a part and property of his 
nature. 



60 THOUGHTS ON 



Although tliis natural talent or gift, this 
magnetic force of will, was possessed by him as 
by no other man, yet it was a gift identical in 
kind with a power that exists in ns all; and, 
indeed, I believe it to have been the same 
power carried out and developed in him to an 
uncommon deo;ree. 

Whatever may be thought of the claims of 
Animal Magnetism to be esteemed a science, it 
has abundantly shown this much at least : that 
the limits of the power inherent in the human 
will are not yet distinctly ascertained. That 
there is an untold amount of power in the will, 
has been too fully attested to admit of a doubt. 
Oftentimes, under peculiar conditions, that 
power has been so suddenly and mightily 
developed, as to cause instantaneously the most 
astonishing physical effects. We have all heard 
of cases in which violent diseases have been 
completely cured at once through a strong im- 
pression made upon the mind. We all know 
how powerfully the mind acts upon the body. 
I have myself had experience of the power of a 
mental state to cause the sudden and entire 
cessation of acute physical pain. 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 61 

Such was the fine organization of Jesus, so 
exquisitely was he constituted, as his whole his- 
tory shows, that the power which is only rucli- 
mental in other men, flowered out into a beau- 
tiful completeness in him; so that to efiect 
instantaneous cures by his will was as natural 
to him and as easy as to breathe. I repeat, it 
was his genius, a gift that he was born with. 



I INFER that he was naturally endowed with 
the power of producing these great effects in- 
stantaneously, from the manner in which he is 
represented as using it. I judge that it was a 
natural power, because it shows so naturall3^ 

It appears always to have been at his com- 
mand. It required no preliminary formalities. 
It came as easily to him as to speak. He uses 
no formula of adjuration, no appeal to any 
name or power above himself. He exerts his 
power with a manifest air of personal authority, 
as if there were nothing that he was so tho- 
roughly conscious of as this power. At tlie 
same time, he does not appear to have tliought 

6 



62 THOUGHTS ON 

mnch of it himself. Or rather, he seems to 
have been unconscious that there was anvthins: 
special in it. He thought no more of it, while 
he exercised it, than he thought of his feet 
when he was walking, or of his voice when he 
spoke. He shows no solicitude to prove to 
others that he possessed this power. He fre- 
quently attributed the striking effects that fol- 
lowed the expression of his will, not to himself, 
but to the faith of those on whom these efiects 
were wrought, fie assured his friends that 
they could do the same things, and even 
greater, if they only had faith in the smallest 
degree. In fine, the exercise of this singular 
power by Jesus, is uniformly marked by the 
promptitude, the ease, and the spontaneity, 
which mark all natural action. 

All this looks to me exactly like the action of 
natural genius. The possessor of genius does 
what his genius inspires him with the faith that 
he can do, with so much ease, it comes so natu- 
rally to him to do it, that the wonder to him is, 
not that he does it, — for how can he help doing 
it? — but that everybody else cannot do like- 
wise. As far as his own consciousness gives 



THE LIFE OE JESUS. 63 

him any insight into the secret of his power, he 
does what he does, because he has faith that he 
can do it. This is as far as he knows ; and so 
faith naturally seems to him to be all that is 
necessary. 



I BELIEVE then that the wonder-working 
power in Jesus was a natural gift, like the 
genius of Shakspeare, or the extraordinary 
faculty of arithmetical calculation occasionally 
manifested in individuals. 

I hold also, and as an inevitable consequence, 
that this great gift was subject to the same laws 
which are illustrated in the action of all other 
natural powers. 

As for example. Before any power can be 
exerted by man, he must be conscious of that 
power, through the faith which it inspires. He 
must believe that he can do what he proposes, 
before he can do it. The power of Jesus was 
exercised on this condition. 

And then again, the vigor of any natural 
power that a man possesses, depends upon its 
being used in a natural way, rightly. The laAV 



64 THOUGHTS ON 

which Jesiis himself stated, when he declared 
that to him who hath will be given and he will 
have abundantly, w^hile from him that hath not 
will be taken away even that he hath, applies 
to the gift of Jesus equally with all natural 
talents. It might have been abused ; in which 
case it would have lost vigor, it would have 
deceased. Has not this been the sad end, over 
and over again, of the rarest gifts of genius ? 
Happy is it for mankind that they can never 
know how much they have lost in this way ! A 
child comes into the world singularly endowed. 
It very early show^s signs of its extraordinary 
endowment. The things, which it is thus em- 
powered to do, it does at first with ease and 
simplicity ; never dreaming that it is doing any- 
thing wonderful, because, when we first come 
into life, there is no one thing more wonderful 
to us than another. The child, however, ex- 
cites the admiration of its parents and others, 
who are not endowed in the same way, or to 
the same degree. Their admiration is loudly 
proclaimed. The child soon perceives the sen- 
sation he is making ; he finds he can do w^hat 
others cannot, that he is distinguished. His 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 65 

self-importance is impressed upon him. His 
vanity awakes. He discovers the delight of 
power. He perceives that he can make gain, in 
various ways, of his peculiar talent. Selfish 
interests take possession of him. 

See now how inevitable it is that his peculiar 
power should languish and decay, when some 
selfish purpose gets possession of him. To the 
exercise of his power, a precedent faith in it is 
indispensable. We succeed in doing things 
that we have never done before, only through a 
conviction that comes to us that we are able to 
do them. Now this indispensable preliminary, 
faith, is impaired, and in the end entirely lost, 
when the mind comes to be engrossed and 
ruled by things not within the legitimate and 
natural sphere of our power. The attention of 
the possessor of genius being diverted from the 
simple, natural exercise of his genius, the pas- 
sion for display or selfish profit having his heart, 
he cannot retain command of his genius, be- 
cause the faith in it, which is essential to its 
exercise, is displaced, and becoming more and 
more difiicult through the distraction caused by 

6* 



66 THOUGHTS ON 

selfish aims. What treasures of power have 
been lost in this manner ! 

ITow I say that the peculiar power possessed 
by the Man of Nazareth, being a natural endow- 
ment, was liable to be impaired and lost in the 
same way. At the beginning of his public 
career he ^vas tempted, as we read, to put it to 
a selfish use. Had he yielded to the tempta- 
tion, his power would have gone from him ; 
because a mind, inflamed by false aims, and 
diverted from the sphere of its healthy activity 
by selfish interests, loses of necessity that single 
faith in its own power which is essential to 
its exercise. But he did not yield to the temp- 
tation to consult his private advantage; and, 
consequently, he did not suflfer any loss of 
powder. He kept it in all its freshness and 
vigor. He never abused it, and it was never 
exhausted. His simple, natural, unconscious 
faith in it was never lost in the feverish excite- 
ment and bewildering anxieties of any personal 
end. It was the healthy, unconscious faith of 
a child. Had it been otherwise with him, this 
extraordinary power w^ould have been taken 
from him ; but by no arbitrary interposition of 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 67 

Heaven. It would have gone from him, just 
as all genius goes from its possessors, when, 
giving their faith and service to wrong aims, 
they lose faith in themselves, and can no longer 
work the miracles with which they once de- 
lighted and blest mankind. 



That the peculiar power exercised by Jesus 
was a natural gift, which he was born with, ap- 
pears from this, that, instantaneous and asto- 
nishing as were its effects, yet, Avhen it was 
exercised upon living human beings, its action 
was invariably in harmonious relation to other 
natural powers. It paid respect to the inner 
laws of our nature, and wrought in concert with 
them, and its effects were realized through their 
co-operation. 

"When he healed diseases, he addressed him- 
self to the minds of the diseased. When he 
restored the withered hand, he did not exercise 
his power upon the suflering limb, but he com- 
manded the man to stretch out his hand. And 
what a startling impression he must have made 



68 THOUGHTS ON 

upon the mind of this man becomes evident 
upon a consideration of the circumstances as 
they are stated, or may be fairly inferred from 
the Records. When I depict to myself the 
scene of this particular miracle, I find anything 
easier than to doubt its reality. Just look into 
that crowded synagogue, or Jewish church. 
Behold that young man there upon whom all 
eves are fastened with breathless interest. See 
the little knot of the elders of the church, look- 
ing at him askance, with aversion and dread, 
watching for some opportunity to put him 
down. In the midst of this excited assembly, 
a man w^ith a withered hand, a private indivi- 
dual, all unused to be an object for the public 
gaze, is commanded by the strange young man 
from K'azareth to stand forth before all present. 
There he stands, trembling with wonder and 
awe and vague expectation ; not knowing what 
was to be done to him, except that his hand was 
to be restored he knows not how. A pindrop 
silence pervades the place. Then Jesus turns 
to those elders, men eminent for their piety, 
so zealous for the sanctity of the Sabbath, that 
they considered it profaned by an office of hu- 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 69 

mauitj^, and now ready to denounce Mm as a 
Sabbath-breaker if he dared to heal the man. 
Listen to the bold and searching appeal which 
he makes to these men who were longing to 
destroy him. ^'Is it lawful/' he asks them, ^^to 
do well on the Sabbath day or to do evil, to 
save life or to kill ?" As if he had said, '' Which 
is breaking the Sabbath, you or I ?" They make 
no reply, for there is no reply to be made. 
There these pious leaders of the people stood, — 
their spiritual pride in the dust, — silenced, con- 
founded, cowering before the mingled glances 
of his indignation and pity ! What a scene was 
there ! It must have been awful, the humilia- 
tion of these saints before all the people. 
Deadly must have been the hate which Jesus 
excited. As no answer came to him, he turned 
to the man with a withered hand, and, in that 
thrilling tone of authority which suited the 
occasion, and which I cannot disconnect from 
my idea of him, he commanded the man to 
stretch out his hand. It was of course like an 
electric stroke, to be thus suddenly and authori- 
tatively addressed by that extraordinary person 
and in that awestruck assembly. The man 



70 THOUGHTS ON 

stretclied forth his hand instantly, before he 
knew what he was doing. The movement was, 
hi a manner, instinctive. 

And so it was always. Christ wrought upon 
the body through the mind. And he attached 
great importance to a certain state of the mind 
in the sufferer, faith^ as instrumental to the 
cure. His will acted upon and stimulated the 
will of the diseased person ; and this it did the 
more readily when the will of the person acted 
upon was already stimulated by confidence in 
the power of Christ. Again and again, where 
those whom he relieved were, through the live- 
liness of their faith, peculiarly sensitive to his 
influence, the efiect was so immediate and deci- 
sive, so wholly unaccompanied by any conscious 
exercise of power on his part, that he attributed 
their cure to their own faith alone. 



There are two modes of thought, two systems 

of philosophy, which divide the thinking world. 

According to one, the material takes prece- 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 71 

deuce of the immaterial; and the mind is re- 
garded as nothing more than the result of the 
bodily organization, just as music results from 
the structure of a musical instrument. Accord- 
ing to this, the material philosophy, " the brain 
secretes thought pretty much as the liver se- 
cretes bile," and the thinking power can have 
no separate existence after the visible mechan- 
ism of the body is broken up. 

The other mode of thinking is directly the 
reverse of this. It is the spiritual or transcen- 
dental philosophy. It regards the mind, or im- 
material thinking part of us, not as the result 
or property of the bodily organism, but as tliQ 
creative source, the originating and informing 
life, the substance of the body. In conformity 
to this way of thinking, the immaterial precedes 
the material. It is through the vital energy of 
the spirit that the body is originally constructed 
and subsequently sustained. 

I hold to the latter philosophy as by far the 
sounder and the better supported, and infinitely 
more inspiring of the two. 

Accepting this way of thinking, I think I 
perceive how it was that Jesus wrought those 



72 THOUGHTS ON 

instantaneous cures, and how naturally, and in 
what harmony with natural laws they were 
wrought. He stimulated into sudden and un- 
usual activity the minds of those on whom he 
produced these effects; and so, by an imme- 
diate development of that spiritual power which 
is the central spring of vitality, bodily diseases 
were thrown off and physical defects were re- 
paired. That diseases have been suddenly 
cured in this way, by a sudden and powerful 
influence exerted by the mind, there is, as I 
have said, no question. In the case of Christ's 
cures, the vitalizing power of the sufferers, who 
applied to him, was excited into extraordinary 
activity, not by fear or hope, but by the deepest 
and by far* the strongest sentiment of our na- 
ture, by the sentiment of veneration. How 
powerful that is, and how powerfully he ap- 
pealed to it, we can never know till we appre- 
ciate the winning beauty, the commanding 
greatness of his life. 



I HAVE said that Christ did not apply his sin- 
gular power to the suffering body, but that he 
healed the body through the mind. 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 73 

There are some things, however, stated in 
the Gospels, which appear to indicate the re- 
verse. For instance, he touched the leper. 
Again and again he laid his hands upon the in- 
firm. In the ninth chapter of John we have an 
account of a man born blind, whom Jesus re- 
stored to sight. We are told that, in this in- 
stance, " he spat on the ground and made clay of 
the spittle^ and anointed the eyes of the Hind with 
the clay^' and told the man to go and wash in 
the pool of Siloam : and he went and washed, 
and came seeing. In another instance, they 
brought to him one that was deaf, and had an 
impediment in his speech. And Jesus took 
him aside from the crowd, and put his fingers 
into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue, 
and said unto him, Ephphatha, that is to say, 
Be opened. And straightway his ears were 
opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed 
and he spake plain.^ Once more, they brought 
a blind man to him. And he took the blind 
man by the hand and led him out of the town ; 
and when he had spit on his eyes, and put his 
hands upon him, he asked him if he saw aught. 

» Mark vii, 32-35. 

7 



74 THOUGHTS ON 

And he looked up and said, I see men, as 
trees, walking. After that he put his hands 
again upon his eyes^ and made him look up : 
and he was restored, and saw every man 
clearly.^ 

These instances seem to contradict the asser- 
tion that Jesus did not apply his power to the 
diseased limbs or organs of those whom he re- 
lieved. But the contradiction is only apparent. 
In the case of the leper, it is not at all neces- 
sary to suppose that the touch of Christ had any 
miraculous efficacy. It was a natural, instinc- 
tive movement on the part of Jesus, fitted and 
possibly intended to give increased animation 
to the sufierer's faith ; which it did, by express- 
ing the perfect confidence of Jesus, by showing 
that he had no fear of contracting that frightful 
disease. 

In the case of the deaf and the blind, it must 
be borne in mind that the communication be- 
tween him and them was broken, or at least 
very much impaired. It was necessary that it 
should be restored. Accordingly he used the 
simple means mentioned in the cases referred 

* Mark viii, 24. 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 75 

to above, not because there was any miraculous 
virtue in them, but only to express his will to 
the minds of those sufferers. The deaf could 
not be impressed by the authority of his voice. 
The blind knew not the power of his eye. 
Therefore he made a palpable application to the 
eyes of the blind, using the simplest means at 
hand. And he put his fingers into the ears of 
the deaf man ; and, as he had an impediment in 
his speech also, he touched his tongue likewise. 
These things I understand him to have done 
solely to communicate his purpose to the suf- 
ferer. They discharged the office of words. 
His '' looking up to heaven*' in this latter case, 
and his ''sighing^'' — were they not the means 
which he took to convey his meaning to the 
man, and to encourage him to make the needed 
effort to speak? "Was the sighing anything 
more than a long inhalation, which, accompa- 
nied by a raising of the eyes, imitated the exer- 
tion which the man was to make ? It was by 
this pantomimic action that he signified to the 
man what he was to do. Only so could he 
make the deaf man and the stammerer under- 
stand what he wanted of him — what it all 
meant. 



T6 TiiouanTS on 

Thus regarded, these applications to the 
bodies or suffering organs of those on whom 
he exercised his power, offer no contradiction 
to my assertion that Jesus healed the body 
through the mind. 



Taking the account which I have given of 
the peculiar power of Jesus as the true account, 
regarding it as a power that was naturally his, 
a gift of genius, are we not prepared to perceive 
in him a transcendent elevation of mind ? How 
beautifully does a Godlike self-forgetfulness 
here open upon us ! How far above all self- 
concern he was, is shown in his manner of 
using his great gift. 

Not his possession of this power, hut his per- 
fectly generous use of it^ renders him great in my 
eyes. It is not for his rare gifts that I revere him^ 
hut for the pre-eminent superiority to those gifts^ 
which his manner of employing them shows in him^ 
and which could he shown in no other way so 
strikingly. His miracles (so called), being such as 
they are, teach me that he was far greater than 
they. Where shall I find words to describe the 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 77 

grandeur and pure moral beauty that irradiate 
his character under this aspect of it? 

Has there a man ever lived, before or since, 
who, like Jesus, never seems to have considered 
the possession of any peculiar power that he 
may have been endowed with, as an ample war- 
rant for a corresponding self-valuation ? When 
an individual finds himself possessed of a gift 
at all rare, and others deferring to him on that 
account as an extraordinary person, he natu- 
rally comes to see himself through the eyes of 
others, as one, to whose preservation and for 
whose honor ordinary men must sacrifice their 
interests, and it may be their lives. Observing 
everywhere the public sense entertained of his 
value, how can he help accounting himself 
justified by the possession of power in using it 
to aggrandize himself? Even though he may 
be far above all vulgar self-display, yet he can 
hardly escape a false idea of his own importance ; 
especially when he finds himself surrounded by 
the stupid and the base, by men doggedly 
standing in the way of all good, or purposely 
misleading the world. How naturally does he 
interpret his conscious power as his express 

7^ 



78 THOUGHTS OX 

cominission authorizing him to disregard the 
rights and lives of inferior men, in order that 
one so important as himself may be preserved 
to the world. And besides all this, there is the 
natural delight taken in the mere exercise of 
power, which is always very seductive. 

But consider how it was with the young Man 
of Nazareth. Only about thirty years of age, 
thus in the very bloom of life ; endowed with 
keen sensibility and large sympathy, as the 
whole tenor of his utterances shows; of obscure 
birth, and so poor that he wandered about, not 
knowing in the morning where he should rest 
his head at night ; actuated by pure and 
generous aims, perfectly conscious that he was 
prompted to the course of life that he pursued 
by no unworthy motive, but by the best, — thus 
situated, thus moved, he found himself pos- 
sessed of a peculiar power, enabling him to 
produce instantaneously the most astonishing 
effects by a word of his lips, by a brief act of 
his will; a power, which, whenever he exer- 
cised it, caused the greatest sensation, and made 
him the wonder of the whole country. 

And yet, — and here is the singular greatness 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 79 

of this most original of characters, — youthful 
and susceptible as he was, although he had 
lived in retirement from his birth up to that 
age, not only does he evince no sensibility to 
the natural captivation of power, he is as wholly 
unmoved by the public excitement, of which he 
is the centre and the cause, as if he were 
all alone in the world. And never is he found 
using the peculiar gift which was native to him, 
as if it entitled him to any deference beyond 
what was due to his personal truth. Very clear 
and strong in that, he did indeed demand to be 
listened to with the respect which is the rightful 
claim of personal integrity. But he never 
makes the slightest parade of his power. He 
uniformly uses it for no purpose but to serve 
some impulse of common humanity, never to 
obtain anything for himself. Had he employed 
it for self-display, such a use of it would have 
argued that he himself thought it admirable. 
Whereas, never using it as if he thought there 
was anything specially wonderful in it, he gives 
us, like Nature herself, the idea of a reserved 
power, and he is always seen to be far greater 
than his works. 



80 THOUGHTS ON 

There is a delight, I say, in the mere exercise 
of power, especially to the young. But to this 
delight he shows himself insensible. Although 
he used his singular gift for the sake of the 
suffering, he did not eagerly seek opportunities 
of exercising it, even in this way. How easily 
might he have persuaded himself to use it more 
frequently, since it was but humane to relieve 
the suffering ! But no such plausible sugges- 
tions had weight with him to betray him into 
excess, or to give his power undue prominence. 
There was evidently something that always 
interested him far more than relieving bodily 
sufferings. He was interested far more in 
ministering to the diseases of the mind than in 
healing the sick. And this too, although the 
latter was sure to make him popular and the 
former unpopular, even to the peril of his life. 
He was far more concerned to speak great 
truths than to work miracles. Accordingly he 
withdrew himself again and again from the 
great excitement which he caused. He sought 
to avoid exercising his gift. It is true, if we 
take the Gospels to the letter, we must infer 
that the number of his miracles was very great. 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 81 

But we must allow for the exaggeration natural 
in such cases. If a physician works only two 
or three remarkable cures, rumor always multi- 
plies them, and represents him as healing mul- 
titudes. In his history, the teachings of Jesus 
are more prominent than his miracles. His 
character as a wonder-worker is subordinate to 
his character as a teacher. 

And when he did exercise his power, it was 
with the utmost directness. He took no pains 
to certify its reality, or to guard against mis- 
representation. He went straight to his pur- 
pose. Before the bystanders were aware almost, 
the thing was done. He never magnified his 
works. He was annoyed because people were 
more impressed by his miracles than his teach- 
ings. '^ Except ye see signs and miracles," said 
he, upon one occasion, "ye will not believe.'' 
He virtually disclaimed, again and again, the 
credit of the cures which he wrought ; telling 
those who were relieved, that it was their own 
faith that had healed them. He said of Jairus' 
little daughter, that she was not dead but only 
asleep. 

And it is striking to observe that, in the 



82 THOUGHTS ON 

exercise of his power upon any one occasion, 
there was never any excess. He never wasted 
it. He used only so much power as was abso- 
lutely necessary.^ In the case of the child just 
referred to, there was no needless display. He 
revived her, but he did not bring her back to 
full health instantly. He exerted no unusual 
power to do what did not require it. He barely 
revived her, and then, relying for her entire 
restoration upon ordinary means, directed those 
present to give her food. So also, when he 
called Lazarus out of the deep slumber, he 
bestowed upon him no superabundant strength. 
Lazarus awoke and arose at the call of his 
friend, but there was no miraculous power in 

* " The spider and the bee, the ant and the beaver, are 
spendthrifts neither of time nor of toil ; and in all the works 
of the Divine Artist around us, — in all the laws of matter and 
of motion, — in the frame of man, of animals, and of plants, 
the economy of Power is universally displayed. Nothing is 
made in vain, — nothing by a complex process which can be 
made by a simple one ; and it has often been remarked by 
the most diligent students of the living world, that the infinite 
wisdom of the Creator is more strikingly displayed in the 
economy than in the manifestation of power." — Sir David 
Brewster, 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 83 

his limbs to enable him to come forth with 
ease, "bound hand and foot" as he was "in 
grave-clothes," and with a cloth covering his 
face. At the vision of the dead man alive, and 
staggering in the thick folds of his shroud, the 
bystanders stood transfixed with amazement 
and dread. And Jesus recalled them to them- 
selves by bidding them go to the assistance of 
Lazarus, and loosen the grave-clothes that he 
might walk freely. Indeed, so frugal was he of 
his power, that on one occasion, in the case of 
a blind man, he had to repeat the effort to re- 
store him ; as, after the first application of his 
power, the man's sight was only partially re- 
stored, and he could barely distinguish men 
from trees. In the account of the extraordinary 
multiplication of the loaves and fishes, one of 
the striking incidents of that event, creating a 
strong presumption of its truth, is the char- 
acteristic direction of Jesus : " Gather up the 
fragments, so that nothing be lost."^ 

' Rammohun Roy, in the Preface to his '^ Precepts of 
Jesus," excuses himself for omitting the miracles, on the 
ground that the Hindoos, for whose instruction that work was 
prepared, would not be struck by them, as they were accus- 



84 THOUGHTS ON 

Like God, like Nature, is the unconscionsness 
of doing anything remarkable that characterizes 
Jesus, the wonder-worker. He produces those 
striking effects as if nothing in the world were 
more a matter of course. And although people 
came to him in such numbers, and so continu- 
ally, that he had not time so much as to eat,* 
and although the crowd was at times so great 
that there was no getting into the house where 
he was,^ and some were in danger of being 
crushed and trampled under foot,^ still no heav- 
ing surges of public wonder could disturb the 
singleness of his purpose, or put him under the 
slightest constraint. He still extended his hand 
to heal the sick, he still spoke to relieve the 
suffering, with a manner as simple as if there 
were not an eye to behold what he was doing, 
nor a heart to beat with admiration and awe. 

tomed to much more extraordinary miracles in tlieir own reli- 
gion. A striking tribute to the homeliness and simplicity of 
the works of Jesus. 

^ Mark iii, 20 ; vi, 31. ^ ^i^^]. j^ 33 . jj^ 4^ 3 l^j^^ ^ii, 1. 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 86 



Indeed, dear as Truth was to Jesiis, and 
wholly given as lie was to its service, yet he 
did not avail himself of his power even to serve 
that dear cause. He did not employ it in that 
interest alone or primarily, if, indeed, ever. 
Could we discharge our minds of all long- 
cherished, preconceived opinions on this point, 
I think the main impression left upon our 
minds, by his history, would be, that his first 
and chief inducement to the exercise of his 
power uniformly was pure pity for the suffer- 
ing that he witnessed. Just as any one would 
instinctively reach forth his hand to rescue a 
fellow-being in danger, so, just as naturally and 
with no ulterior aim, Christ extended his hand 
and exerted his will to heal and restore. I wish 
to say distinctly, that the working of miracles 
was wholly incidental with him to higher pur- 
poses, that they did not make a part of his 
plan, supposing that he had any plan. "When 
he healed a sick person, it was not with one 
eye upon the object of his compassion, and the 
other upon the effect which the good work was 



86 THOUGHTS ON 

to have upon his own repute. Not double, but 
single was his aim, and it was humanity alone 
that moved him. 



It has been so long taken for granted, as a 
point beyond all dispute, that the miracles, so 
called, were designed as the express credentials 
of the authority of Jesus, that it requires some 
effort to see them under the aspect in w^hich I 
am endeavoring to present them ; and which, I 
think, the Gospels authorize : as simple acts of 
humanity. 

It is true Jesus is represented as referring to 
his works in attestation of the Divine favor. 
This is not denied. " The w^orks that I do, bear 
w^itness of me that the Father hath sent me." 
" The works that I do in my Father's name, 
they bear witness of me." ''If I do not the 
works of my Father, believe me not. But if I 
do, though you believe not me, believe the 
works." Again, Jesus is described, in the 
Book of the Acts of the Apostles, as " a man 
approved of God among you by miracles and 
wonders and signs which God did by him." It 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 87 

is true an appeal was made to the works of 
Jesus, in attestation of his truth. And it is 
also true, that they do attest it. 

But it by no means follows that it was his 
motive and express design, when he did those 
works, to prove his own authority. Any honest 
man may justly appeal, as Jesus did, to his 
character; to the good which he has done, or 
endeavored to do, when maligned, as Jesus 
was. But such an appeal does not, by any 
means, render it necessary to suppose that his 
motive in doing good was to prove his own 
benevolence or honesty. 

On the contrary, the worth of a man's good 
deeds, as testimonials to his truth, depends en- 
tirely upon his being actuated by no reference 
to the eftect which they are to have upon his 
reputation. When one performs a good act, 
not with a single eye to it, but with a view to 
the influence it will give him with others, does 
it not instantly lose its worth as a good deed ? 
It certainly shows him to be, not self forgetting 
but directly the reverse, self-interested when he 
professed to be disinterested. He cannot refer 
to it as evidence of the pure benevolence of his 



88 THOUGHTS ON 

motive, for it is not. But when he discharges 
kind offices for others without the slightest 
thought of any credit it is to reflect upon him- 
self, then, when his motives are impugned, he 
may, without exposure to the charge of vain- 
glory, appeal to what he has done, in attestation 
of his innocence. 

To apply these remarks to Jesus. It was 
natural and just that he should refer those, who 
charged him with corrupt designs, to his deeds, 
and let them speak for him. He was accused 
of sinister designs. He demanded to be be- 
lieved. Very naturally he appealed to what he 
was doing. ' If you will not believe what I say, 
consider what I do. I refer you to my actions. 
Are they the actions of a true man or a false V 

Such, I conceive, was the purport of his ap- 
peal to his works ; which, be it fully considered, 
could not have had the slightest worth, as 
vouchers for the purity of his aims, unless they 
were what they professed to be, single-hearted 
works of humanity. It was as works of pure 
mercy that they showed themselves to be ' the 
works of the Father,' accrediting him by whom 
they were wrought. They were not Divine 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 89 

works if the principal intent, with which they 
were done, was, not to relieve those in whose 
behalf they were wrought, but merely to dis- 
play extraordinary power. God never does 
anything in Nature merely to show his power ; 
although it is very common to hear people 
speak as if He did, as if He had arranged all the 
planets and stars, and constructed every plant 
and every animal for the sake of proving that 
He exists to the satisfaction of man, as if the 
Almighty were anxious on that point. The 
pride of the little creature ! 

Do not the foregoing very simple considera- 
tions render it clear that the reference of Jesus 
to his works, in self- vindication, is not at va- 
riance, but in entire harmony with the character 
of those works as I have described them ? 



I WISH to make it appear, for I believe the 
New Testament history authorizes it, that, in 
doing the extraordinary things attributed to 
him, Jesus had no aim bej^ond doing what was 
right and humane at the time. And it is on 



90 THOUGHTS ON 

this very account, because his eye was thus 
single, beaming only with sympathy, that his 
works show themselves to be divine. We lose 
all thought of them as mere displays of power, 
even as he himself made no account of them in 
this respect. It was not for the sake of show- 
ing his power, even for the plausible purpose of 
convincing the people of the truth of his teach- 
ings, that he performed these works. When 
the sick and the lame and the blind were 
brought to him, he was "moved hy compassion.'' 
It was from this sacred dictate of ITature that 
he relieved them. This was his ruling motive, 
— all that he thought of at the moment. It did 
not occur to him, or, when it did occur to him, 
it had no influence to distract his purpose, that 
these beneficent acts would redound to his 
credit. This is what I mean when I say that, 
in doing these works of mercy, he had no ulte- 
rior aim. 

This idea, I think, is very strongly sustained 
by the very careless manner — careless as to 
effect — in which he wrought these cures. Had 
he designed them as evidences, the most ordi- 
nary wisdom would have required that he 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 91 

should put them in the most convincing form, 
and always in the clearest light. When he 
intended, for instance, to raise Lazarus, he 
should have announced his intention before- 
hand, and invited the presence of the unbeliev- 
ing. Whereas, it was purely accidental, appa- 
rently, that any were present except his friends. 
He should, at least, have seen to it that every 
avenue to suspicion was closed. Instead of 
proving his power to restore the dead to life 
upon an intimate friend, he should have se- 
lected a stranger, between whom and himself 
there could be no suspicion of collusion. He 
should not have wrought so many miracles in 
private. He should have taken ordinary pains, 
at least, to guard against mistake or misrepre- 
sentation. Whereas, in fact, he was as indif- 
ferent to misconstruction as ITature herself. In 
the case of the daughter of Jairus, first saying 
that she was not dead,^ he sent every one from 
the room but her parents and one or two of his 

* While our Common Version is generally marked by a 
simplicity akin to that of the Original, it is sometimes a little 
too rude, — ruder even than the Original. When Jesus told 



92 THOUGHTS ON 

own friends. Once and again he took infirm 
persons aside and healed them in private, 
merely because, I suppose, silence and quiet 
were, in their cases, necessary to their effectual 
and immediate cure. He never shows the 
slightest anxiety to make his agency prominent. 
Indeed, throughout, in the whole history of this 
singular natural gift, there is no quality of the 
finest natural action wanting. Grant that he 
possessed this power, and all the rest is exactly 
as it should be, in order to be in keeping with 
his lofty character. All moves and breathes 
and has its being in the style of I^Tature. 



"While in the exercise of this great power 
the manner of Jesus illustrates the simplicity of 
Nature and a perfect singleness of mind, it is at 

tlie professional mourners (corresponding to mutes at modern 
funerals), collected at the house of Jairus, that the child was 
not dead but only asleep, it is said, in our Version, that they 
^^ laughed him to scoiii,^^ — rather a strong demgnstration for 
such a cause, and upon such an occasion. The meaning 
simply is, in modern phrase, they treated his decLaration with 
derision. 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 93 

the same time marked by an impressive air of 
authority, by the dignity as of a born king. 
Never is his tone more commanding, never 
more expressive of the consciousness of power, 
than when he is giving utterance to his potent 
will. "I will. Be thou clean.'' "Young man, 
I say unto thee, arise!" "Stretch forth thine 
hand!'' "Lazarus! come forth!" And his 
manner was thus dignified because, in doing 
these things, he was doing what was perfectly 
natural to him. He was evidently born to the 
power which he thus wielded. And it is proved 
to be his by its being thus easy in him. How 
could a fictitious power ever have been repre- 
sented as harmonizing so gracefully to the very 
life with his great mind ? 

As conscious of his poAver as of his existence, 
he was no more solicitous about the one's being 
acknowledged than about the other's. And 
here, I apprehend, is another reason why the 
exercise of his power was so unstudied. The 
only desire he expressed, so far as others were 
concerned, was, in repeated instances, that 
nothing should be said of it, — that those whom 
he cured should tell no man. He saw what a 



94 THOUGHTS ON 

sensation was created. Instead of taking ad- 
vantage of it, he did what he could to allay it, 
by withdrawing from public notice, and by 
charging those whom he relieved to say nothing 
about what he had done for them. 



It strikes me also as a very original quality 
in him that, young as he was, and conscious as 
he must have been of an unwonted personal 
force, it seems never to have occurred to him 
to rely upon anything else than the unmixed 
power of Truth. Most manifest is it that that 
was, in his eyes, immeasurably the greatest 
power in the universe of things. So entire was 
his reliance on that and that alone, that even 
the unprincipled and ferocious opposition which 
was made to him never suggested to him the 
idea of securing, by his great personal power, 
such an ascendency over the people as would 
have rendered all opposition to him unavailing. 
He is not greater for what he did than for what 
he forbore to do. 

What I say is this, that not only was he in- 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 95 

sensible to every temptation to use his power 
in order to increase his personal influence, but 
he was thus insensible under the most trying 
circumstances, in a position that would seem to 
have justified him in using whatever means 
were within his reach to fortify himself and his 
influence. He never dishonored Truth by divid- 
ing his confidence between her and any other 
power. He loved the Highest with a whole 
and undivided heart. He never infringed upon 
the tribunal of reason and conscience to which 
he uniformly addressed himself. His constant 
use of the interrogative form of expression 
shows how ever-present to his mind was that 
high tribunal. 

I do not challenge admiration for him be- 
cause he never sought with all his great power 
to inflict injury upon those who persecuted him. 
But the wonder is, that, confronted as he was 
by powerful and merciless foes, he was still as 
serene and as unmoved by them, as if he 
neither had an enemy on earth, nor any unu- 
sual means of resisting hostility. To use his 
great gift, save for some blessed office of mercy, 
appears never to have been thought of by him. 



96 THOUGHTS ON 

How clear Ms vision, how pure his aim, never 
to have been deluded into thinking that, as he 
had the good of men so much at heart, he 
would be justified in using all the means in his 
reach to strengthen himself, and that those 
who so wickedly withstood his generous labors, 
deserved no consideration at his hands ! That 
most plausible of errors, the error to which the 
strongest and the wisest have so often yielded, 
namely, that the end justifies the means, derives 
not the slightest authority from him. 



Where does unconsciousness of self show so 
beautifully as in those who, in forgetting them- 
selves, forget all the abundant means of self- 
advancement which their own richly-endowed 
but self-forgotten natures ofler? Surely it is 
through such natures that Love manifests itself 
as all divine. 



The popular idea of Jesus as a being pos- 
sessed of supreme divinity, or of a pre-existent, 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 97 

super-angelic nature, has the effect, as it is 
often remarked, to destroy the influence of his 
personal character. When his nature is de- 
clared to differ thus essentially from ours, we 
lose all means of estimating his strength. 

But no objection of this kind lies against the 
representation here given, according to which, 
the difference between Jesus and other men is, 
not a difierence of nature, but a difference of 
gifts. He was a human being, greatly en- 
dowed. So far from being removed beyond 
the reach of our sympathy on this account, he 
is brought very near to us through the gene- 
rosity and greatness of soul, which he shows in 
the use of his uncommon power, far nearer 
than if he had no such means of manifesting 
that generous spirit which the humblest can 
appreciate and be inspired by. It is small men, 
men of few or no gifts, who are cut off from us 
through their want of power to reach and hold 
our hearts. But great men, really great men, 
so far from standing aloof from us, are brought 
down into our inmost souls by their greatness, 
because it enables them to enter into our very 
being by inspiring us with new sentiments of 

9 



98 THOUGHTS ON 

reverence and love. The ricMy-endowed, when 
they are faithful to their great power, are the 
dearest friends of us all, of the lowest as well as 
of the highest. Jesus of Kazareth is proved to 
sustain no ordinary relation to mankind by the 
fact that he possessed native powers, which he 
so used as to create in all hearts the profoundest 
veneration. Under God, he is the nearest rela- 
tive of us all, our next of kin in the spirit, a 
far closer relationship than that of flesh and 
blood. He is bound to us by the affection he 
inspires, by which he draws us nearer to Truth 
and Goodness, and which belongs to the sacred 
essence and soul of our being. 



Is not Jesus Christ, then, a far greater bless- 
ing to me than any gift of genius could have 
been ? I would rather have the vision of his 
Godlike Beauty and all that it discloses, than 
his power of working miracles. If my friend 
has rare genius and is true to it, then he en- 
riches me and all men, and the least I can do 
in return is to make him welconie to it, His 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 99 

generosity is his title to his wealth, which I am 
only too happy to attest. He himself is a 
richer gift to every man, than any or all of his 
natural endowments are to him, or could be to 
any one. The love which he creates in us, is a 
thousand fold more to us than the possession of 
a genius even greater than his. 



Although Jesus was indifferent to his power 
in relation to himself, yet in relation to God, it 
inspired him with a profound sense of the 
Highest within him. In the consciousness of 
singular power, he was singularly conscious of 
God. In his inmost personality he recognized 
the Eternal Divinity; Hence, while he said, ' I 
am nothing,' he said also, 'I am the Truth,' 'I 
am the Light.' We behold the Highest only 
dimly and afar off, in the external frame of 
Nature. He discerned Him in his own con- 
scious being. He could not separate the two. 
"I and my Father are one." 



100 THOUGHTS ON 



It has often been said, and by those who 
have been disposed to question nearly all the 
particulars of the New Testament History, that, 
on the whole, the character of Christ is too 
great to have been fabricated; that, were it 
fictitious, the existence of such a fiction would 
be even more difficult to be accounted for than 
the actual existence of such a character. 

Now I maintain that there is no respect, in 
which the character of Christ is more decisively 
elevated beyond the possibility of being a 
fabrication than in the simple natural great- 
ness of mind and manner that characterizes 
him in the exercise of the extraordinary power 
which he is recorded to have possessed. The 
conception, in that or in any age, of the great- 
ness thus manifested, if it had no reality, would 
have been a greater wonder than any recorded 
in the New Testament. 



That some things are related of Jesus and 
represented as extraordinary, which are either 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 101 

pure inventions or common occurrences exag- 
gerated, does not by any means cast any doubt 
on the general truth of the history. On the 
contrary, it is a proof that the main events of 
his Life must have been of no ordinary char- 
acter. Exaggerations and false rumors always 
arise from the occurrence of unusual events. 
Where there is smoke there is fire. The 
story of the transfiguration of the person of 
Jesus on a certain occasion, which grew, as I 
believe, out of a dream of Peter's, presupposes 
the truth of what precedes it and the extraordi- 
nary character of the events which excited the 
mind of Peter and occasioned the dream. 

It is related in the seventeenth chapter of 
Matthew that, in order to pay a tax or tribute 
that w^as required, Jesus bade Peter go to the 
sea (the Sea of Galilee) and cast in a hook, and 
take the fish that first came up, and to open its 
mouth, where he would find a piece of money, 
with which he w^as to pay the tribute. This is 
one of the passages which are either purely 
fabulous or exaggerations of ordinary events. 
It does not sound like Jesus. It is a petty and 
needless display of power. It has the air of a 



102 THOUGHTS ON 

childish invention. Besides, it is not difficult 
to see how this story may have arisen. Had 
Jesus merely directed Peter to pay the tribute 
by catching some fish to be sold for that pur- 
pose, and had Peter, obeying the direction, 
chanced to be so fortunate as to catch almost 
immediately a fish valuable enough to furnish 
the amount of money required, how natural is 
it that the account of the incident should have 
grown into its present shape. How stories 
grow we all know from every day's experience. 
There is a very satisfactory instance of it in the 
account, or rather in one particular of the ac- 
count, of the woman who came behind Jesus, 
and was cured of a chronic disease by touching 
his clothes. The fact that the woman was 
cured, and instantly, I see no reason for ques- 
tioning, but decisive reasons for believing. It 
is not to the main fact that I now refer, but to 
the mention which is made of virtue's going out 
of Jesus. This is a fabulous addition to the 
narrative as, I think, very plainly appears. 
Matthew's account of this woman, which I con- 
sider to be nearest the truth, says nothing about 
virtue. He merely states that Jesus turned 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 103 

round and asked who touched him, and the 
woman came forward and confessed that it was 
she. I suppose the woman, who must have 
been all in a tremor of excitement, did not 
merely touch his garments, but twitched them 
convulsively, clutching for life. Jesus, feeling 
something peculiar, and probably, from pre- 
vious experience, surmising the truth, thus dis- 
covered that he had been touched. But it was 
very naturally inferred by the bystanders that 
he discovered that some one had touched him 
by the passing away of the miraculous power 
from his person. Accordingly, in Mark's ac- 
count, this inference is stated; and it is said in 
so many words that Jesus asked who had 
touched him, "because he perceived that virtue 
had gone out of him." This inference being 
once stated, it was a very natural step to repre- 
sent Jesus as saying, in so many words, that he 
felt the virtue go out of him. So it is related 
by Luke, who states that Jesus actually said, 
'^I perceive that virtue has gone out of me." 
He could have said no such thing, as it is appa- 
rent that the reason why he wished to know 
who touched him was, that he might correct 



104 THOUGHTS ON 

tlie impression that the person who had 
touched him was under, namely, that there 
w^as a medical virtue in his very garments, and 
that he might direct the person healed to the 
true cause of the cure. " Thy faith hath healed 
thee," was his language to the woman. Thus 
we have an instance of the way in which a 
story may grow. 

Another incident, which it is not easy to re- 
ceive as true, is the walking on the ivater. No 
reason or motive therefor appears. It has an 
air of display unlike him. At the same time it 
is so connected with a characteristic act of 
Peter's, that, while I cannot clearly discern the 
truth of the fact, I cannot reject it. 

Again. Fabulous as the story of the evil 
spirits' entering the herd of swine appears, and 
although no satisfactory explanation of it can 
be given, yet some of the particulars which it 
states, are strikingly probable from their natu- 
ralness. To repeat very briefly here what I 
have stated more at length elsewhere:^ the 
power which Jesus exercised over the maniac 

^ Jesus and his Biographers, 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 105 

was exerted gradually. The man was not com- 
pletely restored at the first bidding of Jesus. 
He still talked insanely. There is a resem- 
blance in this respect between this case and 
that of the blind man to whom Jesus twice 
applied his power. Again, that such a form of 
insanity, caused by the popular belief in de- 
moniacal possession, should have existed, is 
very natural. This individual, it may be con- 
jectured, being of a nervous temperament, had 
had his imagination excited by the fear that he 
might become the victim of evil spirits. The 
dread so preyed upon him, that, losing mental 
control, he had come' to believe that the posses- 
sion of himself had passed into other and evil 
hands. That he fancied that a whole legion of 
spirits were in him, shows how strong his faith 
was that he was possessed. Once more. The 
proposition to send the spirits into the swine 
was the suggestion of the insane man, and it 
shows the cunning of insanity. He fancied, 
doubtless, that he was speaking admirably in 
character, when, speaking in their name and 
according to their supposed unclean propensi- 
ties, he asked to be sent into the swine, those 



106 THOUGHTS ON THE LIFE OF JESUS. 

unclean animals. At the same time, he desired 
to have ocular proof of the departure of the 
spirits. And thus it would appear that the 
man could be restored to his wits only by a 
compliance with his request ; so hypochondriacs 
have been cured only by being humored. Al- 
though these suggestions point to some basis of 
fact in this passage of the history, yet it is very 
difficult, and I cannot speak with any confi- 
dence as to the degree of truth which it con- 
tains. 

There may be one or two other accounts of 
miracles, more or less fabulous. The story of 
the ITativity I have considered at length in the 
work already referred to. 



THOUGHTS 



II 

I WONDER tliat SO mucli importance has been 
given to the inquiry, whether the Four Gospels 
were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and 
John. Even were this point settled, and in the 
most satisfactory manner, still the truth of 
these histories could be determined only by a 
careful examination of the works themselves. 
It would still remain true that they have been 
exposed from the very earliest period to vari- 
ous causes of corruption ; and it would be very 
possible, and indeed not at all unlikely, that 
they had suffered from interpolations, and that 
the original text had undergone various changes, 
especially during the centuries before the inven- 



108 THOUGHTS ON 

tion of the Art of Printing, wlien they were 
multiplied by transcription. They may have 
suffered more or less from all those liabilities 
to error which Theodore Parker enumerates/ 
and from which he draws the conclusion, illogi- 
cally, as I think, that there is no reliance to be 
placed upon their historical truth. ^ 

Granting, in the language of Mr. Parker, 
that there must be ''limitations to the accu- 
racy" of these Records, inasmuch as they are 
human works, (and what writings are there that 
are not thus limited in accuracy, being human?) 
that they " omit many things that Jesus said 
and did," (what history was ever written with 
no omissions?) that "the national, sectarian, 
and personal prejudices of the writers must 
color their narratives," (what historian has ever 
yet written by the pure white light of truth ?) — 
granting all this and more, still these writings 

^ A Discourse of Matters pertaining to Beligion, pp. 230- 
231. Fourth Edition^ 1856. 

^ By the same mode of reasoning, the value of all historical 
writings is destroyed, for they are all exposed to the very same 
liabilities to error, and Theodore Parker himself is doomed to 
become a myth. 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 109 

may contain truth, historical, circumstantial, as 
well as moral. And it is possible, from an ex- 
amination of them, if not to determine with 
precision the amount of truth which they con- 
tain, yet to approximate it very nearly. Be- 
cause Error may have had a share in their com- 
position, or may have corrupted them with its 
glosses after they were written, it surely is not 
a sound conclusion that they contain nothing 
but fables. Even granting that there is very 
little of truth in them in comparison with the 
amount of fiction which they contain, still, al- 
though the quantity may be small, the quality 
— the subject of these writings being considered 
— may suffice to compensate us bountifully for 
any pains we may take to discover it. 

I repeat my conviction that it is possible, by 
a careful sifting of the contents of these books, 
and by a critical analysis of their style and 
structure, to ascertain with a very close ap- 
proach to exactness wherein they are true and 
wherein fabulous. In physical science, we have 
advanced so far as to be able to determine with 
exquisite accuracy, the exact proportions of the 
different substances which constitute any mate- 

10 



110 THOUGHTS ON 

rial compound. I believe there is a like possi- 
bility of discovering the proportion of historical 
truth, be it more or less, in these Four Histories 
of Christ. On the very face of them, they are 
of such a character, so abundant in detail, as to 
render the success of the proposed examination 
very certain. And my friend Theodore Parker, 
with the strong reliance upon man's native 
sense of truth of which he is constantly giving 
us such abundant evidence, should be among 
the very last to doubt it. 



To the success of such an analysis as I pro- 
pose, there is no theory respecting the origin 
and primitive fortunes of the Four Gospels that 
is of the slightest importance. It may be that 
they were not written by the persons whose 
names they bear ; or, if written by them, that 
they were originally very different in form and 
size from what they are now. Conceding all 
this, I affirm that these books may be substan- 
tially true nevertheless. To what extent they 
are true is a question that may be answered. 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. Ill 

But I hasten to illustrate this position. Mr. 
Parker asserts, that ^'the gospel ascribed to 
John is of small historical value." Now, by 
the same process by which he decides that 
this gospel is not a history but a collection of 
myths, an argument, or, I know not what, — 
by a similar method, I discern in this book, and 
in the most important portions of it, signs of 
reality of the most decisive character. That 
the thirteenth chapter of this gospel is a narra- 
tive of actual incidents, I could not be better 
satisfied, had I been present in person. It is in- 
laid throughout with those marks of truth which 
are discernible by a far more trustworthy sense 
than the eye, and which, when they are found 
in such numbers, create an irresistible convic- 
tion of reality. Mr. Parker will say John never 
wrote it. Very well. Aut Johannes aiit Dens. 
I contend not for names. It is enough that 
I have here a narrative of incidents which must 
have impressed themselves on the mind of 
some one present with the utmost force and 
vividness, for here they are in the narrative, re- 
produced with the precision of a die, with the 
delicacy of an ancient gem. 



112 THOUGHTS ON 

1. In the first place, the act of washing his 
disciples' feet, — how naturally was it suggested 
to the mind of Jesus ! If there were any one 
thing whicli he had most earnestly sought to 
impress upon their minds, it was that they 
should renounce their ambitious hopes and 
their mutual jealousies. He had aimed to in- 
spire them with fraternal confidence one toward 
another. On a former occasion, when a dispute 
arose among them which should hold the high- 
est position in the magnificent empire which 
they were passionately expecting him to esta- 
blish, he beckoned a little child to him, and, 
placing him before them, told them that so far 
from being great in the Divine kingdom they 
could not so much as enter it, unless they 
became as free from all selfish ambition and as 
docile as that little child. But notwithstanding 
this lesson and others to the same purport, here 
at the last, when he was to be with them only a 
very little while longer, and when he would 
have no more opportunities of instructing 
them, — ^here they were, again quarrelling which 
should be the first ! We are told in one of the 
other gospels that at the last supper the disci- 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 113 

pies disputed which should be the greatest. It 
is allowable to surmise that the dispute occurred 
just when they took their places at the table, 
and that there was a struggle for precedence. 
This conjecture is not at random. It is sug- 
gested, if not directly authorized, by the mode 
which Jesus took to rebuke them. That they 
struggled for places is intimated by the fact 
that he sought to correct them by performing 
for them the humblest office of such an occa- 
sion. It was characteristic of him thus to adapt 
himself to the circumstances of the moment. 
Observing their rivalry, which showed how 
little they had been impressed by his teachings, 
he seems to have determined to give them a 
lesson they would never forget. So, selecting 
a suitable moment, he silently rose and took a 
basin of water, and knelt down, and began to 
wash their feet. It was as if he said: ''Ye are 
all aspiring to be masters. I will be your ser- 
vant. Ye are ambitious of the chief places at 
the table. I, whom you call master, perform 
for you the most menial office of hospitality.'' 
The lesson, which he thus gave them, and the 
form in which he gave it, — could anything be 

more like him ? 

10-- 



11^ THOUGHTS ON 

2. The particularity, with which his prelimi- 
nary preparations are mentioned, is finely ac- 
cordant with the circumstances. His disciples, 
not having the slightest idea what he was going 
to do, naturally followed and noted every move- 
ment. Observe how everything he did is speci- 
fied. With every new movement the mystery 
grew, and their curiosity grew also. First, it is 
related, he rose from supper^ — then laid aside his 
garments, — then took a towel, — then girded him- 
self, — then poured water into a basin, — and then, 
&c. 

3. A delicate trait of Nature, revealing the 
sentiments with which he was regarded by his 
humble friends, is perceived in their silent sub- 
mission to the discharge of this menial ofBce by 
their master. How undesignedly is the pro- 
found personal reverence, with which he had 
inspired them, thus expressed ! They did not 
dare to question anything that he did. Do we 
not catch sight of the looks of wonder and per- 
plexity which they exchanged? The utmost 
they could imagine was, that he had some pur- 
pose which they could not penetrate. But 
what could it be ? All were struck dumb but 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 115 

Peter. And even his amazement finds no 
utterance until Jesus approaches him ; and then 
he is unable to repress his emotion. 

4. Very characteristic both of Jesus and of 
Peter, is the brief conversation that takes place 
between them. Every word is in most admi- 
rable keeping with the occasion and with the 
character of each. " Lord^ thou shalt never wash 
my feetV We do not need to be told that it 
was Peter who uttered these words. His Gali- 
lean accent could not have been more marked. 
This exclamation, accompanied, as I always 
imagine, with a corresponding movement of his 
feet, withdrawing them out of the reach of 
Jesus, — how naturally does it burst from the 
lips of one who, on a previous occasion, when 
Jesus was telling his disciples of the fearful 
fate that awaited him, exclaimed, ''Be it far 
from thee, Lord ! This shall not be done unto 
thee!" Equally characteristic is the reply of 
Jesus, ^^ If I wash thee not^ thou hast 7io part with 
me,'' Characteristic in this, that it is in con- 
formity with that habit of his mind that ren- 
dered everything that was said or done in his 
presence suggestive of some spiritual truth. So 



116 THOUGHTS ON 

full was lie of spirituality, that at the slightest 
touch his mind overflowed with it. !Not a 
movement could take place before him, not a 
lily wave, not a sparrow fall, without giving 
him a spiritual hint. K'ot a sound could be 
heard, that was not articulate with a meaning 
that escaped the outward sense. Thus the 
mention of washing suggested the thought of 
the inward cleansing which every one needed, 
who was to take part with him in his great 
work. And it is as if he said : ' What ! will 
you not let me wash you ? If I do not wash 
you, wash you through and through, you can 
be no friend of mine.' How perfectly in char- 
acter, too, is the instantaneous revulsion in 
Peter's mind ! How exactly like the person he 
appears to have been, the exclamation, '' Lord^ 
not my feet only^ hut also my hands and my 
head l''^ Failing to catch the spiritual import 
of the words of Jesus, he is nevertheless sub- 
dued at once, and made pliant to his Master's 
will by the intimation that his friendship with 

* ^ Not only my feet to run for thee, but my hands to work 
for thee, and my head to think only of thee !' 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 117 

him was in question. His feet are no longer 
withheld. He offers his hands and his head to 
the welcome office which is to pledge his devo- 
tion to Jesus. 

5. Observe how consistent with the very deli- 
cacy of nature, and with the magnanimous 
character of Jesus in particular, are the reluc- 
tant allusions which he makes to the approach- 
ing treachery of one of his friends. The first 
allusion is very slight. It was suggested by his 
talk with Peter about washing. When the im- 
pulsive disciple offers his hands and his head to 
be washed, Jesus, brought back to the literal 
sense of the words, but still postponing an ex- 
planation of what he was doing till the fit 
moment, remarks, by way of excusing himself 
from washing Peter's hands and head, that one 
who is clean needs to wash only his feet. The 
feet, exposed as they were by the sandals then 
worn, often required to be washed when the 
rest of the person did not. "And ye are 
clean,'' he adds, " but not alV The allusion 
here to the false disciple is very distant. 
Shortly afterwards, having finished washing 
their feet and explained his purpose in the act, 



118 THOUGHTS ON 

he refers, but more pointedly, to the fact that 
there was a traitor among them. " I speah not 
of you all^'' he says, '' / Tcnow tliose whom I have 
chosen. The language of the Scripture is verified. 
He that eateth bread with me^ hath lifted up his 
heel against me!'' It evidently wounded him 
very deeply that a personal friend, one who had 
eaten bread with him, should prove false. How 
manifest his reluctance to state the fact in so 
many words ! Twice he approaches it, but 
only allusively ; the second time, however, more 
distinctly than the first. Evident is it also, 
that not a breath of personal ilhwill stirs him 
to disclose his knowledge of the meditated 
treachery. The care he takes to avoid naming 
the traitor shows this. He says in so many 
words, that he tells them before it comes to 
pass, that one of them was about to be false to 
him, that, when it shall have happened, they 
may continue to believe in him ; for they would 
then perceive that he had been fully prepared 
for all that was to take place. Having alluded 
twice to the painful fact, in obscure terms, at 
last, under the necessity of speaking plainly, he 
becomes agitated, 'troubled in spirit^'' and with 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 119 

much emotion, he declares outright, that one oi 
them was about to deliver him up to his ene- 
mies. 

His knowledge, by the way, of the treacher- 
ous design of Judas, it is not necessary to 
suppose, was obtained in any extraordinary 
manner. Much is omitted in the narrative. If 
w^e knew all, we should probably see how easy 
it was for Jesus, with his rare knowledge of 
men, to penetrate the designs of Judas, and 
how naturally too he might be acquainted with 
circumstances fitted to throw light on them, but 
not mentioned in the history. 

But be this as it may, Jesus discloses his 
knowledge of the intended treachery with 
manifest sorrow ; and he only tells so much as 
was necessary to preserve the faith of the rest 
of his friends unshaken. 

[In Matthew's gospel we read, that when 
Jesus made the declaration that one of them 
would betray him, his disciples instantly began 
to ask, ''Is it I?" How expressive of the deep 
personal reverence he had inspired was their 
self-distrust ! So implicit was their confidence 
in him that, although eleven of them knew 



120 THOUGHTS ON 

perfectly well in their own hearts that they had 
no traitorous intent, yet they thought it more 
likely that they were going to commit this 
great crime than that he should accuse them 
without reason. He knew them, they knew, 
better than they knew themselves.] 

6. Again. In entire consistency with the 
characters of all concerned, are the incidents 
that immediately follow upon his telling them 
that there was a traitor among them. As he 
did not answer their inquiries, Peter beckoned 
to John (who was so placed at the table that his 
head rested on the bosom of Jesus), to ask who 
it was of whom he spake. Tliis question John 
asked in a whisper, and, as it appears that no 
one but John heard the answer of Jesus, Jesus 
must have answered in the same way. Aware 
that Peter and perhaps others were waiting 
and watching for his reply, fearing also that 
they might understand the motion of his lips, 
it not being his intention to name the traitor, 
Jesus avoids mentioning it, and bids John ob- 
serve to whom, according, I suppose, to a cus- 
tomary form, he was about to hand the morsel, 
which he was then dipping into the dish. He 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 121 

felt free to point out the traitor to John, his 
best loved and most intimate friend, but he 
evidently sought to avoid exciting any feeling 
against Judas. 

7. What a touch of nature is shown in the 
remark: ''After the sop^ Satan entered into 
Judas.'' The fear, the shame, the malignity, 
that were beginning to be aroused in the bosom 
of the traitor, must have shown their devilish 
expression in his features then. But, even if 
they did not, his whole appearance must have 
undergone an instantaneous change in the eyes 
of John. Then Satan first became visible in 
him. 

8. True to nature is the remark made by 
Jesus to Judas : ''What thou doest^ do quickly.'' 
While Judas remained there, the course of 
events must have seemed to Jesus to halt, and 
the suspense must have been intolerable. 

9. It is remarkable and in accordance with 
the rare moral dignity of Jesus, that he de- 
scended to no expostulation with Judas. He 
knew, I think, that the wretched man had gone 
so far that if the generosity, (where shall we 
find its parallel?) with which he was then trcat- 

11 



122 THOUGHTS ON 

iiig him, had no effect but to goad him on to 
the treachery which he meditated, there was 
nothing else that he could do, to save him from 
the crime, that would be of any avail. 

10. Nothing could well be more natural, 
under the circumstances, than that Judas 
should rise and quit the place just at the mo- 
ment when he did. How could he remain an 
instant longer in that presence, when he was 
upon the brink, as he must have thought, of 
having his treachery laid bare ! He had no ap- 
preciation of the magnanimity of Jesus. Who 
else but Jesus would have suffered the traitor 
to quit the place at that juncture, without one 
expostulatory or denunciatory word ! Is it not 
natural to surmise that the fact of being 
charged with a traitorous design before he had 
committed any overt act, was caught at by 
Judas as a great wrong done to him, an injus- 
tice that warranted him at once in retaliating 
the imagined injury by being the traitor he was 
falsely called ? He went out with a heart hot 
with kindling rage and revenge. As soon as 
he had left the room, the dread course of 
coming events must have seemed to Jesus no 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 123 

longer to pause, but to resume its onward 
movement toward the great issue. And then, 
the heavy weight of suspense being lifted off, 

11. How sublimely in character is the excla- 
mation of Jesus, '' Noio is the Son of Man glori- 
fied T' &c. "When Judas had retired, Jesus, 
unlike any other man, yet still like himself, and 
superior to all other mortal men, instead of 
pointing after the retreating traitor and saying 
that that was the man to whom he had just 
alluded, instantly forgot his false friend in the 
blaze of Divine glory that streamed from the 
event which was at hand, and which the depar- 
ture of Judas to consummate his treachery 
must have brought very near. To all human 
seeming, that event, a violent and ignominious 
death, was the utter defeat of all the great pur- 
poses of Jesus, for it was to take place before 
he had fairly communicated any portion of his 
own spirit to a single human being, as the inci- 
dents of that very evening showed. To every 
other eye, supposing it to have been visible to 
others, that event was nothing but a horrid 
mingle of blood and shame. But to him, the 
blackness and the agony were lost in the god- 



124 THOUGHTS ON 

like glory of a martyrdom more triumphant 
than a thousand victories. "With a clearness of 
prophetic insight unparalleled in the history of 
mankind, he penetrated through the thick in- 
famy of the Cross and beheld the serene glory 
of the Highest shining through. When Judas 
had gone from his presence, and might well be 
supposed to be busy in the execution of his 
base design, Jesus saw his own doom more 
clearly than before. And he not only saw it, 
he put upon it that sublime interpretation, to 
the truth of which all subsequent history has 
borne most impressive testimony. The death 
of Jesus on the Cross has touched the heart of 
the world, and changed that vile instrument of 
torture into a most sacred symbol. But, from 
a vision of the glory to be manifested in his 
death, and with a conviction that his hours 
were numbered, 

12. With what natural human emotion does 
he turn to the little circle of his friends, now 
no longer darkened by the presence of a traitor, 
and with parental tenderness exclaim, " Chil- 
dren ! I shall he with you now only a little ivhile 
longer.'' Not for any length of time could he 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 125 

forget them, even in the contemplation of the 
unearthly glory that awaited him. From the 
divine aspect of his near death he turns to the 
human, and, at the thought of his now impend- 
ing separation from them, his heart gushes 
over with new tenderness, and, as is so natural, 
he is made aware, as never before, how much 
he loved them. "With this new and most 
touching experience of his own love, it seems 
to him that he had never commanded them to 
love one another before, and he says: "A 7iew 
commandment I give unto you^ that ye love one 
another^ as I have loved you, that ye also love one 
another.'' 

Thus have I endeavored to present some of 
those marks of Truth and Nature, which pro- 
duce in my mind an irresistible conviction of 
reality. I see here real persons and real events, 
and persons and events of a character inexpres- 
sibly interesting. Let it be that we know not 
the author nor the date of the gospel ascribed to 
John. Say, too, that you find on its pages 
traces of error and fiction. I say also that you 
may discern here luminous signs of Truth. Al- 
though on every other part of this Record you 

11 ' 



126 THOUGHTS ON 

should insist that you find proofs of the fabu- 
lous, yet here, in this thirteenth chapter, I am 
brought face to face with Truth. Here is a 
piece of true narrative, full of nature, full to 
overflowing of beauty. But this is only a 
specimen of this Fourth Gospel. It abounds 
throughout in similar marks of truth. 

Although the date and origin of these Re- 
cords be lost in darkness, they themselves 
shine with the light of truth. The remains of 
tropical animals are found in Arctic regions. 
Whether or not you can tell liovv^ they came 
there, that they are the remains of such animals 
continues unquestionable. 

[The twentieth verse of this chapter: '^ Ve- 
rily, verily, I say unto you, He that receiveth 
whomsoever I send, receiveth me; and he that 
receiveth me, receiveth him that sent me," is, I 
apprehend, an accidental interpolation. It has 
no connection with what precedes or follows. 
Substantially, the same declaration occurs else- 
where.^ It may have been written in the mar- 
gin of some very early MS., opposite the place 
where it now stands. In making a copy from 

' Matt. X, 40 ; Luke x, IG. 



THE LIFE OF JESU;S. 127 

that MS. J some ignorant transcriber may have 
taken it for an omitted passage, and written it 
in the body of his copy. This was one of the 
ways in which, during the centuries when the 
gospels were perpetuated by transcription, the 
original text was liable to suffer from mistaken 
interpolation.] 



To the kind of evidence for the truth of the 
New Testament narratives, of which I have 
given a specimen in the foregoing section, and 
which may be gathered almost everywhere 
throughout the Four Gospels, and by which I 
am impressed with a vivid sense of reality, 
Theodore Parker shows not the slightest sensi- 
bility. I cannot find, in his '^ Discourse of 
Religion," that he attaches any weight to it. I 
am not aware that he recognizes its existence. 
Am I then carried away by mere fancies ? Is 
there no force in such considerations as I am 
suggesting? Is it, as a Reviewer of one of my 
publications has asserted, that I am maintain- 
ing, what he calls, ''a naturalism based upon 



128 THOUGHTS ON 

grounds so irrational and untenable that it is 
hardly to be conceived that a second advocate 
of it will ever be found ?"^ 



It should be borne in mind that these marks 
of Truth and l^ature, which I have pointed out, 
are not at all prominent in the narrative. I am 
not aware that they have been noted before in 
the light in which I have placed them. There 
is no attention called to them by the narrator. 
They are not enlarged upon. ISTor is there the 
shadow of an appearance that the writer 
dreamed of furnishing evidence to the truth of 
his narration. Indeed, these signs of Truth 
which I have just specified, so far from being 
made conspicuous, are only intimated, not 
directly stated, but left to be inferred; very 
fairly inferred, but still they are only inferences. 
And the conclusion is, that nothing but Reality 
ever admits of inferences so unforced and so 
self-consistent.2 

' iV. A, FevieiVj vol. Vl, p. 464. 

2 In order to see how these traits of Nature escape the 
acuteness of the most critical commentators, let De AVette, 



THE LIFE or JESUS. 129 



The difference between the Fourth Gospel 
and the others is striking. A vast deal of labor 
and learning has been applied with very imper- 
fect success, to the explanation of this differ- 
ence. The idea which is given of Jesus in the 
last gospel differs from that which is presented 
in the other gospels, but I cannot perceive any 
inconsistency between the two. 

It is explicitly stated in this Fourth Gospel, 
that its object is to prove that Jesus is the Mes- 
siah.^ It is evident also, from the peculiar 

for instance; on this very chapter, the thirteenth of John, be 
consulted. [Exegetisclies HandhucJi znm JSf. T.) Amidst the 
most elaborate minute criticism, only once is the internal 
truth of this passage alluded to, and that is, where it could 
not well be overlooked, in the exclamation of Peter: ^^ Not 
my feet only^ hut also, c&c." — ^' a very characteristic trait," 
briefly observes the learned commentator. In consulting 
these most erudite exegetical works, I find them so in- 
geniously careful to avoid all allusion to the spirit of the 
Scriptures, that I am forcibly reminded of the cunning 
instinct with which the larvae, deposited by certain flies in 
living animals and feeding on their bodies, take care to avoid 
the vital parts. 
* Ch. XX, 31. 



130 THOUGHTS ON 

phraseology of the introduction, that the writer 
had certain contemporaneous opinions in view. 

It appears also, from the whole tenor of the 
book, that it is the work of a mind remarkably 
spiritual, of just such a person as would have 
been intimate with Jesus. He was, spiritually, 
nearer to the great Teacher than any other of 
those who were about him. He entered more 
fully into his spirit, — understood him better. 

N^ow supposing an account of Jesus and his 
teachings to have been written by a person of 
this character, a near personal friend of Jesus, 
and with the design stated, and with an eye to 
modes of thinking existing in his day, I think 
it would have proved to be just such a work as 
this gospel; more spiritual than the other gos- 
pels, and yet showing Christ under the coloring 
and shaping of the writer's peculiar character 
and design, and of the existing opinions in the 
midst of which he wrote. 

"While an intimate friend of Jesus, one who 
was peculiarly adapted to be on intimate terms 
with him on account of a partial similarity of 
nature, would seem to have been best qualified 
of all his friends to w^rite his life, yet the feet 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 131 

that he had a case to make out, a special design 
to fulfil,^ and that he had his own ways of 
thinking, would, in a degree, disqualify him for 
the work. He would be apt to give us an idea 
of Jesus, shaped and colored by his purpose 
and by his own peculiar ways of thinking. He 
would aim to state, not precisely what Jesus 
said on various occasions, but what he would 
have said according to the writer's thought. 
The other Evangelists give us the words of 
Christ, and whether they themselves under- 
stood them, they give no sign. Whereas the 
author of the Fourth Gospel evidently gives us, 
in his own words, what he knew or believed to 
be the thoughts of Christ. In the third chapter 
of John, we have an account of a conversation 
between Jesus and ISTicodemus. But, in truth, 
there is very little said by either. From the 
thirteenth verse to the twenty-first, inclusive ; 
and again, from the thirty-first to the thirty- 
sixth, inclusive, it is evidently not Christ, but 
the author of the Gospel, who is discoursing. 
The language used there is the language of the 

' Ch. XX, 31. 



132 THOUGHTS ON 

First Epistle of John, not of Jesus. Again, in 
the thirty-ninth verse of the seventh chapter, 
we have one of the comments of the author of 
the Gospel, explanatory of the words of Jesus; 
a comment of doubtful correctness. In fine, in 
the Fourth Gospel we have Jesus as John con- 
ceived of him, looking at him w^ith a special 
purpose and with reference to particular opi- 
nions. 

At the same time, a very large portion of 
this gospel, like the other gospels, bears so 
visibly the stamp of Truth, that it seems, like a 
sheet directly from the Press, to be the imprint 
of Reality, transferred with mechanical exact- 
ness from the mind of the narrator to the page 
on which he wrote. 



It is of the first importance to a just estimate 
of the Teachings of Christ, that what was pecu- 
liarly his should be carefully distinguished from 
what belonged to his country and his age. We 
are bound to make this distinction with the 
greatest care, certainly before we undertake to 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 133 

criticise him. It has never yet been made with 
any precision. And mainly for this reason : 
because it seems never to have been sufficiently 
considered, that certain modes of thinking give 
rise and currency to corresponding modes of 
sjpeecJi^ and that the forms of expression^ thus ren- 
dered popular^ come^ in the course of time^ to he 
employed hy those tvho neither consider themselves^ 
nor are considered by others^ as holding the ideas 
or theories which those modes of speech^ in their 
primary signification^ express. 

For example, it was originally believed that 
the earth is stationary, and that the sun moves 
round it. This primitive belief gave rise to 
corresponding modes of speaking which repre- 
sent the sun as rising and setting, and which 
continue in universal use now, long after it has 
been ascertained that it is not the sun that 
moves, but the earth. We all use these modes 
of speech, but no one infers from our use of 
them that we believe the sun actually to rise 
and set. "We use these forms of language not 
for their logical signification, but merely to sig- 
nify facts. 

Centuries hence, when the EnHish lano'uniro 

12 



134 THOUGHTS ON 

shall have become a dead language, and our 
literature shall have been swept into oblivion, 
and opinions and modes of thought now com- 
mon, will be ascertained only very imperfectly 
and by laborious research, suppose then, should 
such a state of things ever be, that some learned 
critic should undertake the labor of deciphering 
and translating a solitary copy, or fragment of 
a copy, of some popular work of the present 
day, dug up from the ruins of a past world. 
Coming across such terms as ' diabolical,' 
^fiendish,' if, after immense research, he should 
be able to determine their literal meaning, 
would it be a safe judgment if he should gather 
from them that his ancient unknown author, 
who possibly may have been a man believing 
in neither good spirits nor bad, recognized the 
existence of devils and fiends ? 

And yet it is precisely by such unauthorized 
inferences that Jesus has been represented as 
teaching things which were not his, but be- 
longed to his age. 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 135 



I DO not consider it at all essential to the 
greatness of his character that it should be 
shown that he did not share in the popular 
opinions and beliefs of his age. It does not 
impair my idea of the largeness of his mind, to 
believe that, in regard to a variety of points, he 
was as much in sympathy with the popular 
mind as one could be, who was as much en- 
grossed as he was wdth certain great thoughts 
beyond his time. I see no necessity for re- 
quiring that it should have been otherwise with 
him. But what I do consider as a great mis- 
take, and as doing him the greatest injustice, is, 
to infer from his use of popular forms of speech 
that it was his express design to teach what those 
forms of speech^ literally interpreted^ express. 



In the time of Christ, demoniacal agency had 
long been such a matter of universal belief, as 
the cause of almost every variety of bodily suf- 
fering, that it hajd created and established in 
popular use certain modes of speech, which 



136 THOUGHTS ON 

every one, who had to do with diseases, was 
under the necessity of using, as there were no 
other. They were employed and understood, 
not as declaratory of individual opinion in re- 
gard to the origin of disease, but simply to 
represent facts. Accordingly, as to the personal 
opinions of Jesus in relation to the causes of 
disease, we can infer nothing, one way or 
another, from his use of the established phrase- 
ology of his day. 

Without the slightest personal disparage- 
ment, we may fairly presume that he had no 
opinions of any kind, affirmative or negative, 
as to the reality of demoniacal possession. It 
was not a matter, it is reasonable to suppose, 
upon which he thought at all ; he was wholly 
occupied with much more important things. 
Nor did his use of the popular language of the 
time, in this respect, have the slightest influence 
upon the belief of others. 



We have very little hesitation in designating 
as the offspring of ignorance and superstition 
the theory of disease which had established 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 137 

itself in the popular mind in those clays, and 
which attributed bodily and mental disorders to 
malignant spirits. And yet it is not wholly 
without foundation. We may see good reasons 
to reject the idea of personal spiritual existences 
taking possession of men and deranging mind 
and body. But that many diseases are caused 
and cured by a spiritual agency, in other words, 
through a mental influence or condition, admits 
of no question. The old Jewish superstition 
was, not so much a falsehood, as a distortion of 
the truth. Many an error is only a truth in- 
verted. The ancient Jews, with a wise instinct, 
traced disease to the central vitality, the spirit, 
although they erred in imagining that they 
found there worse demons than themselves. 
The immaterial part of us has much to do with 
our physical derangements. Falsehood and 
sin, in the heart, wear and tear the delicate 
texture of the nerves, and trouble the currents 
of the blood. 



It is through forgetfulness of the fact which 

I have stated respecting language, namely, tliat 

12-x- 



138 



THOUGHTS ON 



words, in passing into popular use, often lose 
their original sense, that Jesus has been repre- 
sented as designing to give the weight of his 
express personal authority to the popular ideas 
of the Kingdom of Heaven as a great political 
institution ; so it was regarded by his country- 
men. 

My belief is that the idea of the Divine king- 
dom, in its outward and temporal character, 
had no living place in his mind, no vital rela- 
tion to his thoughts. Under all the popular 
phraseology, w^hich he used in speaking of it, 
I think it is evident that what took possession 
of his mind w^as the idea of a purely spiritual 
empire, the moral government of the Highest. 
In all his hints and descriptions of the Kingdom 
of Heaven, his aim may be perceived, to render 
some moral feature of it prominent. 



There is one passage in his historj^, and a 
very memorable one, which, duly considered, 
forbids me to think that he participated in the 
popular notions of his day in regard to the 
Kingdom of Heaven. 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 139 

It is that passage that relates how the mother 
of two of his disciples, full of the idea that he 
was about to establish a visible empire, came 
and asked him to promise the nearest places to 
his throne to her two sons.' How promptly and 
clearly does it appear from his answer to this 
application, upon what ideas of glory and 
dominion his mind was fixed ! How manifest 
is it that the authority which he was thinking 
of, was not an authority to be represented by 
any visible splendor, but to be obtained through 
sufiering! ''Can you^'' is his instant question 
to the young men, " can you drink of the cup 
that I shall drinh of^ and he baptized with the lap- 
tism that I am baptized with V In other words : 
" Can you drink of the cup of bitterness that I 
am to drink ? Can you endure to be immersed 
in the flood of suffering which I am to pass 
through?" Thus incidentally, and all the more 
strikingly because incidentally, is it disclosed 
what ideas of power he cherished, and how they 
were associated, nay, identified, with suffering, 
and suffering such as he was to undergo for 
Righteousness' sake. 

Little dreaming of his meaning, the two dis- 



140 THOUGHTS ON 

ciples, simple-minded men that they were, an- 
swer him in the affirmative, saying that they 
are able — able to do and to endure anything 
to secure the coveted honors. "Yes," he vir- 
tually replies, " it is true, you will drink of the 
same cup and pass through the same baptism of 
blood and fire. But to sit on my right hand 
and on my left is not in my gift. It will be 
given to such as shall be found qualified there- 
for in the providence of Heaven." 

The other disciples were indignant at this 
attempt of the two brothers to get an advantage 
over the rest. And then it was that Jesus, per- 
ceiving their ambition, gives them, — gives 
them ? gives the world ! — that immortal defini- 
tion of true greatness, the depth of whose 
meaning is yet to be fathomed, and of which 
his life is the only adequate illustration which 
the world has yet seen. Yes, and he puts it in 
the clearest light by contrasting it with the 
worldly idea of power. " The nations," he says, 
" have kings and lords, but it must not be so 
among you. Whosoever among you would reign^ 
let him serve. He among you that would he chiefs 
let him he your servant. Even as the Son of 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 141 

Man came not to be served but to serve, to 
serve even to the surrender of his life, to serve 
not one, but many/' "With such a clear insight 
into the nature of true power, how could he 
have had any sympathy with the crude notions 
of greatness popular in his time ? I shrink 
from the thought. It is as absurd as it is un- 
worthy. 

Of this whole passage in which Jesus defines 
greatness, I think it may be said without exag- 
geration, that, if it were the only saying of his 
that had come down to us, and, even if it had 
been unaccompanied by the splendid illustra- 
tion of his personal example, it would have 
been recorded among the deathless sayings of 
the world's best wisdom. Truly, he was a 
world-teacher, and the world's wisest may sit at 
his feet, finding all their wisdom anticipated. 



That it was by spiritual ideas of the kingdom 
that he was inspired, and that we are not to 
infer from his use of the popular language of 
his day, that he held the ideas which that Ian- 



142 THOUGHTS ON 

guage appears to express, is evident from this, 
that, from the very first, he was impressed with 
the certainty of the violent death that awaited 
him. 

The opinion has been intimated, and Mr. 
Parker concurs with it, that Jesus had a poli- 
tical aim.^ But what renders it highly im- 
probable that he should have sought any 
political success, is the fact, to which I now 
refer, and which is made apparent in a very 
striking way. The dark prospect of the fate 
that he was to suffer, appears never to have 
been long absent from his mind. If there be 
any language of his which seems to show^, in 
the words of Mr. Parker, that ''he had political 
plans that lie there, indistinctly seen through 
the mythic cloud which wraps the whole," I 
hold it, all the circumstances considered, a 
great deal more likely that his language has 
been erroneously reported, especially as the 
writers of the gospels actuallj- had political ex- 
pectations, rendering them very liable to mis- 
understand him, than that one, to whose mind 



' Discourse of Religioiu p. 238. Fcurtli Edition. 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 143 

the idea of a speedy and violent end was con- 
stantly recurring, should he cherishing political 
plans. 



It is striking to note the connection, in which 
the occasional allusions to his death that he 
uttered, are introduced. The coincidence is 
curious. He is always found foretelling his 
own death precisely at those junctures, when, 
if he had had any political purposes at all, or at 
any time, those purposes would have been be- 
trayed. As soon as his little band of personal 
attendants had, through Peter, avowed their 
faith that he was the expected Messiah, — from 
that moment he began to tell them of the fate 
that awaited him."" On one occasion, when all 
around him were filled with admiration of his 
mighty power, he said to his disciples, ^Let 
what the people are saying sink into your ears, 
for the Son of Man will be delivered into the 
hands of men.' It is popular applause that 

' Matt, xvi, 27 ; xvii, 22. Mark viii, 31 ; ix, 31. Luke ix, 
22, 43, 44. 



144 THOUGHTS ON 

bewilders and intoxicates, and suggests political 
dreams. But wlien his friends avowed their 
faith in him, or when the acclamations of a 
crowd were ringing in his ears, it is singular, if 
he had political aims, that he should be found 
instantly alluding to his approaching death. 
"When he entered Jerusalem, attended by an 
immense multitude rending the air with their 
shouts, instead of being moved by this imposing 
demonstration, he was weeping.^ 



It is not his explicit predictions of his fate 
that alone show how unlikely it is that his 
mind was ever beguiled with visions of political 
power. Far more impressively, because inci- 
dentally and by obscure allusions, it appears 
that no thought of temporal success possessed 
his mind. Once, when ^Hhere went great mul- 
titudes with him," curious to see what he would 
do and to catch every word that fell from his 
lips, he turned and told them that any one who 
w^ould really follow him must take up his cross 

^ Luke xix. 41. 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 145 

and come after liim to execution.' Could any- 
thing show more decisively what lie expected 
his own fate to he ? 



That it was not upon anything of a political 
nature that his thoughts were running, we have 
impressive evidence in that passage that tells 
us how he answered those who wanted to know 
why his disciples did not fast like the disciples 
of John. 2 To this question he replied, " Can 
the guests at a bridal fast when the hridegroom has 
come, and is in the midst of them ? But the days 
are coming when the hridegroom will he taken 
away from them, and then tvill they fast,'' This 
was evidently said at a time when, attended by 
admiring throngs, he must have appeared to his 
disciples to be carrying everything before him, 
and they were exulting in the most brilliant 
expectations. They were as joyous as the at- 
tendants at a wedding, and Jesus was among 
them as a bridegroom among his friends, the 
observed of all, the fountain of joy and honor. 

' Luke xiv, 25, 27, ^ Matt. \x, 14-17. 

13 



146 THOUGHTS ON 

To fast then, under sucli circumstances, was 
wholly out of place. It would never have done 
to pour the new wine of their gaiety into the 
old bottles of fasting and penance/ It was no 
time to fast. Had they attempted it, their 
tumultuous and effervescent emotions would 
have burst through the restraints of those 
threadbare and gloomy formalities. "But the 
time is coming," he added, and how touch- 
ingly mournful the allusion! ''when the bride- 
groom will he taken aivay from them^ and then 
they will fast." 



On three different occasions he was asked for 
a sign.^ And it is very striking to observe, 
first, that this demand was, on every one of 
these occasions, made just after he had done 
some extraordinary thing; and, in the next 

* If the Pharisees understood him, I wonder whether they 
were not shocked when he implied that the fastings which 
they held so sacred, were no better than worn ont old wine- 
skins and ragged old garments. His mode of expressing him- 
self must have sounded very irreverent. 

2 Matt, xii, 38 ; John ii, 18 ; vi, 30. 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 147 

place, that he always replied to this demand 
with an allusion to his approaching death. His 
answers at these times are all widely different 
in form, but in spirit, in their meaning, sub- 
stantially one and the same. At one time, the 
reference is to the prophet Jonah ; at another to 
the temple of his own body ; and, on the third 
occasion, when the request for a sign is con- 
nected with a reference to the sign given by 
Moses in the manna that was supposed to have 
fallen from heaven, he says, in reply, that the 
manna which Moses gave to the fathers was 
not the true bread of heaven, that he himself 
was the true heavenly bread, and was about to 
give himself for the nourishment of men. Here 
again, as in the previous instances, his thoughts 
turn to his death. 

I do not know whether there be anything in 
the whole ITew Testament history more impres- 
sively indicative of truth than the harmony 
among these incidents, hidden as it is from first 
sight by their great diversity in form, language, 
and circumstance. 

ISTeither do I know how it could possibly be 
shown more satisfactorily that the idea con- 



148 THOUGHTS ON 

stantly present to the mind of Jesus was not a 
political empire but a violent death. 



And what renders it still more improbable 
that he should have indulged in any political 
aspirations is the fact that, not only was his 
mind possessed with the idea that his career 
was soon to be terminated by death, not only 
did he foresee his fate, and know that it was 
inevitable, but, what is far more remarkable, he 
knew that it was essential to his success. He 
not only had made up his mind that he must 
die, but he held his death to be as indispensable 
to the triumph of his Truth, as it is to a seed, if it 
is to produce fruit, that it should be buried in 
the earth.' Mark with what solemn emphasis he 
announces the necessity of his dying: '^ Verily ^ 
verily^ I say unto you^'' [Indeed^ indeed^ it is so) — 
and by what a simple, natural analogy he illus- 
trates it, — '' except a corn of wheat fall into the 
ground and die, it ahideth alone; hut if it die, it 
bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life 

'' John xii. 24. 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 149 

will lose it^ and he that hateth his life in this ivorld 
will keep it forever ^ 

When we have fathomed the meaning of 
these words, when we appreciate the clear and 
far insight which they attest in the speaker, we 
shall see that he who nttered such sayings, and 
was so single-hearted withal, is not lightly to be 
suspected of political designs. 

As Mr. Parker has remarked, ^'it lay in the 
nature of things" that Jesus, speaking the truths 
which he did, should have been persecuted and 
put to death by the priests and Pharisees. 
Since it was thus natural, under the circum- 
stances, that he should suffer a violent death, 
we see how natural it was that Jesus himself, 
wise and clear-sighted as he was, should foresee 
his own fate. To see that fate in the future re- 
quired in him certainly no special illumination. 



What a halo of sanctity invests his person 
when it is considered that all those immortal 
precepts of wisdom, all those renowned para- 
bles, all those acts of a self-forgetting charity, 

13^ 



150 THOUGHTS ON 

were the words and works of a young man, 
living that calm, coherent, and generous life 
under the ever-deepening shadow of a terrible 
doom, and fully aware of it all the time. Oc- 
casionally, for a brief moment, he was agonized 
at the appalling outlook, but habitually his 
heart, instead of being hardened or broken, in- 
stead of being crushed or self-absorbed, gushed 
out in profoundest sympathy with the Highest 
and the Lowest. 



While there are the indications, which I 
have mentioned, of a mind in Jesus far above 
all worldly ambition, I freely admit that much 
of his language respecting the kingdom of 
Heaven seems, at first sight, to imply that he 
shared in the popular impression of his day. 
But that peculiarity of popular speech, of which 
I have spoken, being kept in view, does it not 
go far to show that he is not of necessity to be 
understood as entertaining the popular ideas ? 

In the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew's gos- 
pel, there is a very imposing scenic represcnta- 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 151 

tioii of the coming of the Messiah that the 
Jewish nation was looking for with the ntmost 
impatience. It begins thus : " When the Son of 
Ma7i shall come in Ms glory^ and all the holy 
angels with him^ then will he sit upon his glorious 
throne^ and before him will be gathered all nations^ 

IsTow in this w^hole description, extending 
from the thirty-first verse to the end of the 
chapter, all, I conceive, that is specially taught 
by Jesus, all that was novel and striking to his 
hearers, is the declaration of the grounds upon 
which the awards of that higher condition of 
things that was expected, would be made. All 
the rest is the now stiff and cumbrous Jewish 
costume, which the central and prominent idea 
took from the fashion of thinking popular at 
the time, and which was then easy and grace- 
ful. It was not at all the purpose of Jesus 
in this passage to inform the people that the 
Messiah was coming, and under the circum- 
stances above described. Of all these things 
they had long been so well assured, that their 
faith neither needed nor received any confirma- 
tion from him. But what he did intend to im- 



152 THOUGHTS ON 

press upon the minds of his hearers was, that 
when the new order of things should come, 
those who had a care for the lowliest would be 
received, and those who neglected them would 
be cast out with sorrow and shame. And this 
was all that his hearers learned from him. The 
kingdom described in this passage is the king- 
dom of Righteousness, existing in the eternal 
nature of things; in other words, ^'prepared 
for the righteous from the foundation of the 
world." With all its Jewish garb, we find in 
this passage an idea of the kingdom very dif- 
ferent from the popular idea of that day. After 
the same manner of speaking, one might say 
now that, Svhen the Judge shall be seated and 
the book opened, we shall not be asked to what 
church we have belonged, but whether we have 
been just and humane.' In expressing this 
sentiment in this form, it is not our purpose, 
nor are we understood, to intimate our belief in 
a literal Day of Judgment. That is not the 
point. 



It will help us to understand the position 
which Jesus held in relation to the ideas of the 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 153 

kingdom popular among his countrymen, to 
consider how his personal disciples stood af- 
fected towards these same ideas while he was 
living and after his death. 

So long as they were in personal attendance 
upon him, their minds were filled with Jewish 
visions of a temporal empire shortly to be esta- 
blished. But, as it is easy and most interesting 
to remark, there was, slowly and unconsciously, 
formed within them a new interest. A new 
love was germinating in their inmost hearts, — 
the love of the True and the Good, exemplified 
in Jesus, — which gradually and naturally dis- 
placed their Jewish ideas. So that, after his 
disappearance, although I do not suppose that 
they ever, to the day of their death, formally 
renounced their old Jewish conceptions of the 
kingdom, yet, I think, they lost their interest 
in them as they became interested in things 
infinitely better. The old, gorgeous vision of a 
temporal kingdom receded. The venerable 
idea of Jesus was steadily taking the central 
place in their affection. It so contented them, 
that, while they still looked for the coming of 
the great kingdom, and in that generation, as 



154 THOUGHTS ON 

many passages in tlie Epistles snow, they were 
every day becoming more and more reconciled 
to its indefinite postponement. 

Now, just as tliis higher love in the hearts of 
his disciples superseded their old ideas, so, I 
conceive, in the mind of Jesus himself, the cen- 
tral place was given to those great moral truths, 
to the illustration of which his life was devoted. 
It may be that Jewish ideas and visions still 
floated within the sphere of his mind, but they 
were very dim and distant. They had no 
vitality. They interposed no veil to contract 
the breadth of his vision. They had none of 
his attention, except as they might help to set 
forth those grand moral features of the Divine 
kingdom which had his whole heart. 

I cannot conceive how it could have been 
otherwise. The truths of which he shows such 
a thorough appreciation, and which his whole 
history exemplifies, are, in their very essence, 
of so regenerating an efficacy, that, w^hen they 
once have entire possession of a man, as they 
had of him, it must needs be that all narrow 
modes of thinking retire before them. Truth 
is of so beneficent and powerful a nature, that 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 155 

it always enlarges and elevates the mind in 
wliicli it is accorded its rightful place. It is 
true, very often old prepossessions still remain, 
but only as the old bark remains attached to 
the tree long after it has been outgrown by 
the new^ bark fully formed underneath. It has 
no living connection with the tree. It does not 
injure it, nor retard its growth. It only does 
not fall wholly away at once. Is it not con- 
stantly witnessed how, a new interest being 
awakened in a man in the great Cause of Hu- 
manity, for instance, which is now wrestling 
with our age, he very soon grows indifferent to 
those old theological fictions w^hich he esteemed 
just now the essence of all truth? Truth is 
intrinsically luminous, electric, vital, — there is 
nothing so much so, — and does not dwell in a 
man to no purpose. It enables him to distin- 
guish. 



That Truth, heartily embraced, as Jesus em- 
braced it, expands and enlightens, and renders 
the moral sense discHminating, we may learn 
from perceiving how Error, on the other hand, 



156 TPIOUGHTS ON 

when embraced with a like heartiness, bliiicls 
the understandings and dulls the moral senti- 
ments, even of the ablest and most accom- 
plished. To the fearfully blinding influence of 
error, Theodore Parker, standing in the front 
in the great Battle of Freedom, cannot be in- 
sensible, perceiving as he must how the sanc- 
tion given by the public opinion and law^of this 
formidable nation to the monstrous wrong of 
Slavery is, at this present, undermining the 
moral faith and degrading the moral sense of the 
civilized w^orld. The suffering which Slavery 
inflicts upon its millions of victims is the least 
of its curses. The horror of the thing is the 
moral blindness which it produces in those who 
advocate it, be they never so wise and learned. 
Under the countenance of this people, sworn 
as we are to maintain the Declaration of Hu- 
man Rights, the revival of the African Slave- 
trade, as a thing fit to be discussed, is shame- 
lessly intruding upon Kings and Cabinets. 
And there is no Power to cry : Hush ! From 
this beacon of Liberty, as it professes to be, 
darkness is raying out over the nations. 

From this terrible eftect of moral error in 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 157 

turning hearts of flesh into stone, and in 
striking blind the most keen- sighted, scholars, 
statesmen, and divines, we may form some idea 
of the blessed influence of Truth, of a spirit, 
self-sacrificing as was that of Jesus, in illumina- 
ting the inward vision. 



But not only is he charged with having had 
political plans, it is intimated, in a general way, 
that, although Jesus of ITazareth uttered some 
great truths, taught certain very broad princi- 
ples, yet that he did not himself appreciate 
them in their breadth, but was in fact, in some 
respects, an ignorant enthusiast, sharing in the 
narrow ideas and prejudices of his nation. 

In my view, it is vastly more probable that 
any passage in his history, which may seem to 
countenance such a representation of him, is 
either misunderstood or erroneously reported, 
than that this idea of his character should be 
just. And I am not aware of saying this, be- 
cause I have any disposition to claim for him 
an impossible perfection. The simple truth is, 

14 



158 THOUGHTS ON 

that he appears to me to have evinced on 
numerous occasions such a clear, comprehen- 
sive moral sense, as renders any supposition 
more becoming and more probable than that 
he should have had views and purposes so nar- 
row and external as Mr. Parker attributes to 
him.^ Here it is that the saying of Coleridge 
becomes applicable : '^ When you cannot under- 
stand a writer's ignorance, presume yourself 
ignorant of his understanding."^ It is much 

* Discourse of Religion, p. 239. Fourth Edition. 

2 '^ Until you understand a ivriter^s ignorance^ presume 
yourself ignorant of Ms understanding. This golden ride of 
mine does, I own, resemble those of Pythagoras in its obscu- 
rity rather than in its depth. If, however, the reader will per- 
mit me to be my own Hierocles^ I trust that he will find its 
meaning fully explained by the following instances. I have 
now before me a treatise of a religious fanatic, full of dreams 
and supernatural experiences. I see clearly the writer's 
grounds and their hollowness. I have a complete insight 
into the causes which, through the medium of his body, had 
acted on his mind : and, by application of received and ascer- 
tained laws, I can satisfactorily explain to my own reason all 
the strange incidents v/hich the writer records of himself. 
And this I can do without suspecting him of any intentional 
falsehood. As when in broad daylight a man tracks the steps 
of a traveller, who had lost his way in a fog or by treacherous 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 159 

more rational, and a great deal more modest, to 
suppose that either the language of Jesus has 

moonshine, even so, and with the same tranquil sense of cer- 
tainty, can I follow the traces of this bewildered visionary. / 
understand Ms ignorance, 

" On the other hand, I have been re-perusing with the best 
energies of my mind the TiMyEus of Plato. Whatever I com- 
prehend impresses me with a reverential sense of the author's 
genius ; but there is a considerable portion of the work to 
which I can attach no consistent meaning. In other treatises 
of the same philosopher, intended for the average comprehen- 
sion of men, I have been delighted with the masterly good 
sense, with the perspicuity of language, and the aptness of the 
inductions. I recollect, likewise, that numerous passages in 
this author^ which I thoroughly comprehend, were formerly 
no less unintelligible to me than the passages now in question. 
It would, I am aware, be quite fashionable to dismiss them as 
Platonic jargon. But this I cannot do with satisfaction to 
my own mind, because I have sought in vain for causes ade- 
quate to the solution of the assumed inconsistency. I have 
no insight into the possibility of a man so eminently wise, 
using words with such half meanings to himself as must per- 
force pass into no-meanings to his readers. When, in addi- 
tion to the motives thus suggested by my own reason, I bring 
into distinct remembrance the number and the series of great 
men, who, after long and zealous study of these works, have 
joined in honoring the name of Plato with epithets that 
almost transcend humanity, I feel that a contemptuous verdict 



160 THOUGHTS ON 

been incorrectly reported, or that it is not un- 
derstood, than that one, who had such an in- 
sight into man and the nature of true power, 
one who, like Jesus, had fathomed ''the divine 
depth of sorrow," and found dominion and 
blessedness there, seeing distinctly an unearthly 
glory shining through death and ignominy, 
should have been under the gross Jewish delu- 
sion of a temporal kingdom. 



On the whole, very manifest is it to my mind 
that Jesus, being of the people and speaking to 
the people, used popular language, such forms 
of expression as were current and alone intelli- 
gible. In order, therefore, to avoid ascribing 
things to him that he never taught, we must 
keep in mind what I have stated, namely, that 
words in common use are continually lo'sing the 

on my part might argue a want of modesty^ but would hardly 
be received by the judicious as evidence of superior penetra- 
tion. Therefore, utterly baffled in all my attempts to under" 
stand the ignorance of Plato, / conclude myself ignorant of 
Ills luidersfandinr/r — Coloidge^ Blog. Lit. 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 161 

meaning which they originally expressed, and 
coming in time merely to designate facts, with- 
out involving any recognition of that theory of 
the facts which they originally represented. 
Thus we talk of" lunacy^'' "St. Vitus' s dance^'' 
"St. Antliony's fire^'' using these terms merely 
to denote certain diseases. 



Christ speaks frequently of the Evil one. In 
the Lord's Prayer, "Deliver us from evil," 
should be, " Deliver us from the Evil one." It 
has consequently been set down as a matter be- 
yond all dispute that he taught the personality 
of evil, and that this idea rests on his express 
authority. 

But the very plain truth is, that, as bodily 
and mental diseases were in his times attributed 
to malignant spirits, so moral evil w^as in like 
manner ascribed to an evil being. And so 
fixed and universal was this faith long before 
the time of Christ that it had created and 
moulded the forms of language, in which moral 
evil was spoken of, and which soon came to be 



1G2 THOUGHTS ON 

employed merely to represent the facts of sin 
and temptation. At the present day, I can 
readily imagine Mr. Parker to say, for instance, 
(it is not impossible that he has said it, there 
is no doubt he thinks it,) that " the Fugitive 
Slave law was enacted at the instigation of the 
devil." I should hold him to be perfectly true 
and honest in this assertion. At the same time, 
I should not consider myself at liberty to infer 
from his use of this mode of expression that 
he believed in the personality of the devil. I 
should understand him as employing this mode 
of speaking, not by any means for the sake of 
what it literally imports, but to emphasize a 
fact. 

So, when Jesus related to his friends his ex- 
perience in the desert, whither he was impelled 
after his baptism, he represented the evil 
thoughts that occurred to him as the spoken 
suggestions of the Evil one. But I have no 
idea, either that he intended, or that his disci- 
ples understood him to say, that Evil came and 
spoke to him with an audible voice and a visible 
presence. In the terms which were then the 
universal form of describing temptation, he told 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 163 

the story of his trials. And all that they who 
listened to him, gathered from the account was, 
simply, that he had been tempted by evil.^ 

I do not mean to assert that neither he nor 
they entertained the idea of a personal evil 
power, but only that it was not an idea which 
he undertook to teach. The modes of speak- 
ing which he employed, prove nothing, as to 
his positive belief in the personality of Evil. 
In all probability, he did have such a belief, if 
that can be called a belief, which was the result 
of no personal examination, into which no dis- 
tinct thought entered, and which really had no 
vital influence in his mind. 



So, also in regard to other points upon which 

* In order to understand how it is that the temptation of 
Jesus should be told as it is, in the form of a dialogue between 
him and the Evil one, it must be borne in mind that it is char- 
acteristic of times and persons retaining any degree of primi- 
tive simplicity, to represent the silent operations of thought 
dramatically — to put them in words. The gospels abound in 
examples in point. '' And they that sat at meat with him 
began to say within themselves^ Who is ihisj^^ &c. Luke vii, 
49. 



164 THOUGHTS ON 

Jesus is represented to have given positive in- 
struction, I can readily imagine, without de- 
tracting from his greatness, that he had no per- 
sonal convictions, affirmative or negative. He 
has been and still is understood to teach the 
endless punishment of the wicked, and the 
material fire of hell. But it is a point beyond 
dispute, that he did not originate the represen- 
tations of punishment and hell-fire which we 
find in his teachings. They were the popular 
ideas of the time ; or rather, they had ceased to 
be definite, living ideas in men's minds, and 
had become mere phrases, figures of speech, 
into w^hich, by connecting them with those 
grand and indisputable truths which he taught, 
he breathed a new and spiritual significance ; 
and they are to be interpreted in accordance 
with those truths. They were the current coin, 
worn smooth by long use, which, passing 
through his mind, were re-stamped with the 
cipher of his invisible realm, and are now to 
receive their valuation from the standard of his 
truth. 

That he used the language of his day in the 
manner I have described, is strikingly shown in 
that passage in which, under popular forms of 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 165 

speech, he refers to the temporal prosperity and 
temporal decline of Capernaum: '^ Thou, Caper- 
7iaum, which art exalted unto heaven, will he cast 
dotvn to helV Is there any reference here to 
the fiery hell of modern theologians ? Surely 
not. 

Let it be reiterated, if we would not fall into 
the greatest mistakes in ascertaining what he 
actually taught, that the use of long-established 
forms of speech attbrds no certain index of in- 
dividual opinion as to the precise ideas which 
those forms of speech primarily signified. 



I CANNOT refrain from expressing my aston- 
ishment that Mr. Parker should refer to Mat- 
thew vii, 13, 14, in proof that Jesus '' considered 
God so imperfect as to damn the majority of 
mankind to eternal torment."^ ''Enter ye in at 

^ Discourse of Beligion^ p. 239. Mr. Parker is not always 
careful in his statements. While in the passage referred to 
he explicitly affirms the above to have been the doctrine of 
Christ, elsewhere (p. 125) in alhiding to the dogma ^^ which 
dooms the mass of men to endless torment/' he remarks, "the 
wisest of the Heathen taught such a dogma as little as did 
Jesus of Nazareth y 



166 THOUGHTS ON 

the strait gate, for tvide is the gate and broad is the 
way that lead^.th to destruction^ and many there he 
that go in thereat : because strait is the gate and 
narrow is the way which leadeth unto life^ and few 
there be that find it.'' I do greatly err in my 
understanding of this passage, if there is the 
slightest allusion here to anything like the Cal- 
vinistic doctrine of the eternity of hell torments. 
Is it anything more than a simple picture of 
human life ? Does not every generation illus- 
trate it ? Wisdom has her few followers. Folly 
her hosts. Wisdom leads to life, Folly to ruin. 
Ancient authors, Xenophon, Cicero, Seneca, 
have given similar representations. Every 
Latin schoolboy remembers a parallel passage 
in the Tabula of Cebes.^ 

^ (7o\ d' eyoj iaMd \^oc(ov ipico^ fiiya vr^Tite lUpaiq. 
Tr^v ixh Toi xavJnrira y,ai IXadov ianv ili(j{}at 
prfidioj^' XsiT] jih odo^y jidXa d^ iyybd-L vaiet, 
TYjq d^ dpSTTj^ lopaJra d^so'i 7:p07:dpoL-fh'^ If^^ryAWj 
dd-w^aror fxaxpoz ^^ ^-cC^ opd-to^ ol'io^ err' ahzryj^ 
y.(U Tpyj^h^ TO TZpajzo'^' inry^ d^ el^ axpir^ uriat^ 
prj\dc7] di] eTzetra 7:iXstj yalzTi-q r.ep ioTxTa. 

Eesiod, EFF. x. HM : 2G2. 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 167 



''Sell all thou Jiast^ and give to the poor and 
follow me.''^ " But sell not all thou hast, except 
thou come, and follow me ; that is, except thou 
have a vocation, wherein thou mayest do as 
much good, with little means, as with great. "^ 

I infer from Mr. Parker's criticisms of the 
moral teachings of Jesus, that the above requi- 
sition is regarded by him as overstrained. But 
I cannot perceive how, under the circumstances, 
Jesus could have enjoined anything else. It 

TRANSLATION. 

'^To thee now reflecting I tell very good things^ simple 
young Perses, 

Badness is easily chosen, it's found in the greatest abundance. 

Level and plain is the pathway, its entrance is open to all 
men, 

But labor in front of true virtue is placed by the Powers 
immortal, 

And narrow and steep is the road to it, and at first 'tis ex- 
ceedingly rugged ; 

But when after labor unceasing thou hast finally climbed to 
the summit, 

Then truly it grows very easy, though toilsome it hath been 

aforetime." 

[H. H. F.J 
* Matt, xix, 22. 

^ Of Goodness of Nalvrc. Baron's Essat/s. 



168 THOUGHTS ON 

was not the first injunction laid upon tlie rich 
young man to whom it was addressed. He was 
first directed by Jesus to obey the command- 
ments. And when he said that he had always 
done that, and desired to know what more he 
could do, then it was that he was bidden to sell 
all that he had. If he had thrown in his lot 
with Jesus, he would have been forced to give 
up his wealth. What wiser thing could he do 
then, than to dispose of it first as Jesus directed ? 
But even supposing this demand to be some- 
w^hat too high-toned for our common human 
nature, — the inability of the rich youth to 
comply with it seems to indicate as much, and 
Jesus himself declares that it was all but impos- 
sible to the rich, — I think, for any exaggeration 
there may be in it, the evidence which it fur- 
nishes of the insensibility of Jesus to all mer- 
cenary considerations is ample compensation. 
It suggests a very striking contrast between 
him and his modern followers. He did not 
hesitate to impose upon the wealthy young 
man, — and wealthy young men were not nume- 
rous among his friends, — a requisition that 
drove the youth away instantly, and lost him 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 169 

his influence upon the young man's mind for- 
ever. Christians at the present day take very 
good care how they run the hazard of losing 
wealthy converts by suggesting any such uncom- 
promising conditions. Christian churches and 
Associations, Tract societies, &c., account it 
wrong to risk their influence with the rich and 
powerful by insisting even upon what certainly 
cannot be regarded as an exaggerated duty, 
namely, that they should cease from buying 
and selling their fellow-men, who chance to be 
of a different complexion from their own. 



Mr. Parker mentions as one of the " obvious 
defects'' of Christ as a Teacher, that he bade his 
disciples, when they should be arraigned before 
magistrates and kings, to have no anxiety as to 
what they should say, as it would be given 
them what to say.^ Mr. Parker appears to re- 
gard this as the extravagant promise of a mere 
enthusiast. 

As I read it, it is the language of truth and 

' Discourse of RrJi(/io7i, p. 210. 
IT) 



170 THOUGHTS ON 

wisdom. Jesus told his friends that they would 
be summoned to answer for themselves before 
high dignitaries of the Church and State. The 
prospect might well fill them with dismay. 
What were they, rude, simple men, to do in 
such august presences ! Would they not trem- 
ble from head to foot, and be bereft of all 
power to articulate a word? But he assured 
them they need feel no alarm. With the occa- 
sion would come all needed power. It would 
he given them^ that is, they would he ahle to acquit 
themselves as they ought. Truth, ever boun- 
tiful, would take care of her faithful servants. 
The Cause, for which they would be carried be- 
fore the civil and ecclesiastical tribunals, would 
be a fountain of inspiration, full and overflow- 
ing. It would not be they who would speak, 
but the Truth, that great power of God. 



I THINK it very important to consider, in 
order to a just appreciation of the teachings of 
Jesus, that what he taught is not true merely 
because he taught it, but that he taught it 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 171 

because it is true. His thoughts are not the 
creations of his fancy. He does not express 
opinions. He declares facts^ pre-existent and 
irreversible laws. In every utterance of his, 
I look for and I find, under all the stiff and 
antiquated costume of the language in vv^hich it 
is clothed, the truth that he teaches ; by this I 
mean the thought which, when fully perceived, 
offers evidence in and of itself to its truth, — 
shines by its own light. 



To perceive that Jesus taught only what is 
intrinsically and eternally true, let the reader 
of the Gospels substitute will for shall^ in the 
Beatitudes, for instance : ' Happy they who 
mourn, for they will be comforted!' 'Happy 
the gentle, for they will inherit the earth !' 
'Happy they who hunger and thirst for the 
Eight, for they will be filled !' &c. 

In other passages, too numerous to specify, 
the same change may be made with great ad- 
vantage. Shall expresses primarily authority. 
It implies the exercise of an arbitrary will on 



172 THOUGHTS ON 

the part of the speaker. Whereas will is simply 
significant of the future. It represents, not an 
arbitrary promise ^or threat, but a certain conse- 
quence. 'Happy they who hunger and thirst 
for the Eight, for they ivill be filled,' i. e., 
naturally and of necessity. So is it in the un- 
changeable nature of things. They who hunger 
and thirst for other things are never satisfied. 
But the very desire for righteousness refreshes. 
The substitution of ivill for shall^ in disclosing 
the indisputable truth of the teachings of Jesus, 
relieves him from the appearance of making 
arbitrary announcements, when he is only de- 
claring the pre-established laws of the moral 
world, teaching, in a word, the Religion of JS'a- 
ture. " Strive to enter in at the strait gate, for 
many ivill seek to enter in, and will not be 
able." ''Many that are first will be last, and 
the last, first.'' "Unto every one who hath 
ivill be given, and he will have abundance, but 
from him that hath not will be taken away even 
that which he hath;" i. e., 'He who improves, 
will increase in power, but he who does not 
improve will lose what power he has.' An in- 
disputable law of our nature. "Ask and ye 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 173 

will receive, seek and ye will find." Not an 
arbitrary promise, but a necessary result is here 
signified. Open the Four Gospels at random, 
and you cannot read a few consecutive verses 
without finding occasion to make this substitu- 
tion. Thus my eye has just fallen upon the 
twenty-first verse of the twenty-sixth chapter of 
Matthew. " Verily I say unto you that one of 
you will betray me.'' Again, at the close of 
the twenty-fifth chapter of the same Gospel, 
" These will go away into enduring punish- 
ment," &c. 

[In citing this last passage, I read enduring 
instead of everlasting^ because, as I believe, it 
expresses exactly the meaning of the original 
Greek word alw^^oq^ which is simply indefinite.] 



Why is it that we are so ready, when any 
beautiful thing in Nature or Art is before us, to 
fasten our attention instantly upon its defects, 
or what strike us as its defects ? I am slow to 
believe that it comes from a depraved disposi- 
tion, or from the absence of that charity that 

15-^ 



174 THOUGHTS ON 

finds pleasure, not in iniquity but in truth. 
The artist, who hung one of his paintings out- 
side of his door with the request that the 
13assers-by would be pleased to mark its faults 
on the canvas, and who was dismayed at night 
to find it marked all over as one mass of faults, 
was consoled the next night by finding it again 
in the same condition, when, after erasing all the 
marks, he had exhibited it a second time with 
the request that people would be so kind as to 
indicate its beauties. Unless there is some pas- 
sion to be gratified, or some interest to be served, 
men are as willing to note excellencies as faults, 
indeed a great deal more willing. For our heart 
and our flesh crieth out for the Perfect. Man 
is made for the Highest, and nothing less can 
long content him. And for this reason it is 
that faults oflend us, and we criticise them as if 
we were resenting personal wrongs. They are 
trespasses on our birthright, which is Perfec- 
tion. This is the inexorable demand which no 
bribe can buy off*, no compromise satisfy. 

Although the disposition so commonly shown 
to dwell upon defects admits of so favorable a 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 175 

construction, still the happier course and the 
wiser is to seek first in all things the true and 
the good, — to dwell upon beauties rather than 
faults. We are not to be blind to faults, but to 
estimate them aright. And this we can do 
only by ascertaining first and always the good 
there is in everything. Look for the evil first 
and exclusively, and you will be sure to over- 
estimate it ; thus error ensues, and evil multi- 
plies itself. We find only what we seek. It is 
a principle of criticism, essentially religious, 
that no reviewer can deal justly with a book, 
unless he first reads it in faith and love, as if he 
himself had written it. We must endeavor to 
ascertain what of truth there is in any work 
before we can be prepared to tell its defects. 
Here is a principle that applies to the least 
thing as to the highest. If a new edible is 
brought to you, and you put it to your lips as if 
it were poison or a drug, it will be pretty sure 
to offend the palate. To do it justice, and to 
know the quality of its taste, you must take 
one mouthful of it as if you relished it. Wisely 
has it been said, that it is not enough to be able 
to see that any opinion is false, the aim should 



176 THOUGHTS ON 

be to discover how it ever appeared true to any 
one. 



Able and learned men have formed them- 
selves into committeesj and tried to settle the 
claims of this new and strange growth called 
Spiritualism. Their efforts have come to nothing. 
They have satisfied nobody who was not satis- 
fied before. 

The reason of their failure is plain. Their 
criticism has all been based upon the assump- 
tion, openly made or secretly and uncon- 
sciously, that the thing to be examined is an 
unmitigated delusion. It followed of necessity 
that their learning and ability, so far from 
qualifying them to render a final judgment, 
satisfactory to all parties, made it certain at the 
outset that they would make good their ground. 
Just in proportion to their ability and culture, 
they were sure to accomplish this purpose. Of 
what use is it to be wise and learned, if one 
cannot maintain any ground he chooses to 
take ? 

Let those who undertake to investigate the 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 177 

merits of Spiritualism, start with a different 
aim. Let them assume that there is truth, fact, 
ill it, of one kind or another. This assumption 
does not foreclose examination. It authorizes, 
nay, it invites the closest. It challenges the 
utmost sagacity. When Truth is singly sought, 
its existence must be presumed, and then it is 
very certain to be found, although it may be 
present in very small measure. 

Undertake an examination of the New Tes- 
tament history, assuming that it is all a fable, 
and just in proportion to the completeness of 
your critical apparatus and your ability, will 
be your success in satisfying yourself, and all 
who are of the same way of thinking, of the 
soundness of your assumption. 



All the attempts that have been made to 
point out defects in the character and teachings 
of Jesus have always betrayed a want of appre- 
ciation of his real greatness, by being, more or 
less obviously, directed not at him and at his 
doctrines, but at the false representations that 



178 THOUGHTS ON 

have been made of these; the falsehood of 
which would have been seen at once, had there 
been a just estimate of him beforehand. Ob- 
jectors find material for unfavorable criticism 
of the Gospels only by putting into them 
modern ideas, which have no right to be there, 
and which the language of the Scriptures, cor- 
rectly interpreted, does not express. Poor 
Shelley raves against Jesus Christ as the enemy 
of Truth and Freedom. I cannot be shocked at 
the ravings of the young poet, I pity him so. It 
is evident that he had suffered to be palmed oft* 
upon him a monstrous fiction, created out of the 
false theology of Christendom for the veritable 
Man of l^azareth, the Bringer of Light and 
Liberty. 

The same is more or less the mistake of all 
who have undertaken to speak or to write in 
depreciation of Jesus. It is not Jesus himself, 
but an erroneous idea of him, or a mistaken 
interpretation of his language, which they are 
found to be criticising. It will be time enough 
to begin looking for the defects of this extra- 
ordinary character, when, after studying it 
thoroughly in reverence and love, we come to 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 179 

appreciate its greatness. "When we have once 
caught a glimpse of that, we shall hesitate long 
before we presume to talk about its defects. 



Jesus of Nazareth was human. Being hu- 
man, he had limitations. He manifested not 
absolute perfection, but the perfection of an 
imperfect nature. " There is none good but 
one, God." 

All the imperfections, however, that I see in 
the personal character of Christ serve only to 
enhance his greatness, and render my sense of 
the singular elevation of this wonderful man 
only the more profound. 

He was evidently a man of profound sensi- 
bility. I observe in him constantly the strongest 
emotion. Sometimes his anger was aroused, 
and in no slight degree. When some of the 
leading men, professed teachers of religion, 
were watching to see whether he would perform 
an office of humanity on the Sabbath, in order 
that they might charge him with violating its 
sanctity, first intimating that their thoughts 



180 THOUGHTS ON 

were murderous, "he looked on tliem with in- 
dignation.'' The Greek word is a very strong 
one, elsewhere translated wrath. On another 
occasion, when he was rebuked by ' the ruler of 
the synagogue' for healing a poor woman on 
the Sabbath, it is difficult to imagine him as 
speaking save in a tone of awful severity. He 
stigmatized the man as a hypocrite, — called him 
so to his face. Again, when his disciples would 
fain have prevented certain women from bring- 
ing their children to him, he was " much dis- 
pleased." He was angry then with his own 
friends; and that countenance, which, I doubt 
not, was turned with a beaming smile of tender- 
ness upon the little ones, was darkened a mo- 
ment before with great displeasure. How 
deeply he was moved at being charged with 
being in league with Beelzebub, is evident 
from the strong language in which he answers 
the charge, pronouncing those who brought 
it incorrigible, past all hope of mercy. It was 
the language of intense feeling. And so ab- 
sorbed was he on that occasion, that when he is 
suddenly interrupted and told that his mother 
wanted to speak with him, he seems bewildered 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 181 

for a moment, and exclaims, "Who is my 
mother!" Can it be imagined that his eye did 
not flash — that there was no tone of severity in 
his voice, when he said to Peter, " Get thee 
behind me, Satan !" Or that he spoke without 
passion, when he poured out upon the ruling 
classes, the Scribes and Pharisees, those fiery 
denunciations ? His language, the language of 
a man shocked to the inmost at the depravity 
which he describes, is so strong and so severe 
that some have thought it did not become him. 
But there is ample reason to believe that it was 
strictly true. The horrible death which he suf- 
fered shows how unprincipled they were, — 
hearts of stone, — hesitating at nothing, — the 
men who murdered him. His fate proves that 
he described them in fitting words, for it shows 
that they were ready for any enormity. 



On more than one occasion ejaculations of 
impatience broke from his lips : " O faithless 
and perverse generation! how long shall I be 

IG 



182 THOUGHTS ON 

with you ! How long shall I bear with you !"^ 
"I have a baptism to go through, and how am 
I agonized till it be over !"^ '' What thou doest, 
do quickly."^ What a cry of human weakness, 
wrung from him by extreme suffering, rose 
from his Cross ! " My God ! my God ! why 
hast thou forsaken me?''^ What a revelation 
of human infirmity, of a nature worn down and 
well-nigh crushed, is that scene in the garden, 
when he told his disciples that his distress was 
so great that it seemed to him as if he should 
die !^ '^ My soul is exceeding sorrowful even 
unto death ; wait here and watch with me." He 
wanted to be alone, and yet he could not bear 
to be alone. In his agony he threw himself 
prostrate on the earth, and the sweat fell from 
him like heavy drops of blood.^ Three times, 

' Matt, xvii, 17. ^ l^j^q ^ii^ 50. 

3 Jolm xiii, 27. ^ Matt, xxvii, 46. 

^ Matt, xxvi^ 38. 

^ The narrative does not say that blood fell from him in- 
stead of sweat, — blood could not have been distinguished in 
the darkj — but that his sweat was like, ^ as it icerej great 
drops of blood. (Luke xxii, 44.) How this circumstance 
became known to the disciples in the dark, and when they 
were, as they state, asleep, is one of those questions that may 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 183 

not enduring to be alone, he went and awoke 
his disciples with reproachful words at their 
insensibility, thus turning from God to Tnan, 
from man to God, in a state of mind bordering 
on distraction. He had exhausted him.self in 
comforting them. But they fell asleep and 
could give him no comfort in return. So evi- 
dent is his prostrate condition at this hour, that 
orthodox Christians have said that his human 
nature was then forsaken by his Divine nature ; 
an explanation proposed, without any warrant 
in the Eecord, merely to save a theological 
theory which has as little foundation in Scrip- 
ture as in Reason. 



Again, he had seasons equally human, of 

remain unanswered without invalidating the fact. It may 
easily be imagined that when Jesus went to awaken his 
friends, his sweat fell upon the face or the hand of one or 
another, in a drop or drops so heavy and large as to seem like 
blood. Had it really been blood, they would hardly have 
thought of calling it sweat, or the mode of describing it would 
have been reversed, and they would have said that blood fell 
from him as it were sweat. 



184 THOUGHTS ON 

great exaltation of mind, bordering on ecstasy ; 
as at his baptism, when every veil was drawn 
aside and he looked into heaven, and a dove, 
hovering within the sphere of his rapt vision, 
as he came out of the water with eyes uplifted 
in prayer, lost its familiar appearance and was 
transfigured into a symbol of the presence of 
the Holy Spirit ! "When the seventy, whom he 
sent forth to announce the heavenly kingdom, 
returned, and reported the sensation which the 
annunciation caused, ^' I beheld Satan," he ex- 
claimed, "as lightning fall from heaven!"^ 
Again, when the Samaritans came running to 
him at the well, drawn by the report of the 
woman whom he met there, how greatly was 
he exhilarated ! The conversation of the woman 
refreshed him so that his hunger vanished, and 
his disciples had to entreat him to eat; the 
moral field then seemed to him all ripe for the 
liarvest. For the moment all difficulties van- 
ished before him. 



All these indications of our human nature, 

» Luke X, 18. 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 185 

SO far from causing the slightest diminution of 
our reverence for him, only render him the 
more admirable, because they attest a nature 
tender and susceptible, and heighten the eflect 
of the great qualities which he uniformly 
showed. It would have implied great insensi- 
bility had he never been angry, never been 
tempted, never moved to tears, never exalted 
nor depressed. If no word of mortal passion 
had ever come from him, it would have gone 
far to prove that he was constitutionally hard, 
different from other men. These manifesta- 
tions of weakness command our sympathy by 
showing us ourselves in him. They reveal his 
near relationship to us. They make him one 
with us. Descending with him into the depths, 
the more reverently do we scan the heaven- 
reaching heights to which he ascended. 



The Man of Nazareth is remarkable not only 
for the depth and breadth of his intuitions, but 
also for the delicacy of his spiritual sense. It is 
as delicate as it is strong. The leading moral 



186 THOUGHTS ON 

teachers of antiquity give one the impression, 
together with a certain rugged grandeur, of a 
boyish if not barbarian simplicity, that did 
not always distinguish things indifferent from 
vital truths. They are great, but they are 
antique. With all their superiority to their 
times, they still belonged to them. But in him 
there is a fine finish of the moral nature which 
is in advance of the world, even now after 
eighteen centuries, and which tells less of a 
Past than of a Future. No culture that has 
yet been realized, however refined, can look 
down upon him. 

When even the gentlest of his friends was 
ready to invoke fire from heaven to consume 
the inhospitable Samaritans, " Te know not^' 
said he, '^what manner of spirit ye are of.''^ 
Again, when a certain man begged him to 
speak to his brother to divide their patrimony, 
" Man^'' said he, ''who made me a judge or a 
divider over you T"^ 

What a striking instance have we of the 
delicacy of his mind in the way in which he 
received the costly offering of Mary's rever- 
ence !^ The suggestion, '' Why was not this 

^ Luke ix, 55. ^ l^^|^q ^ii^ 14. ^ Matt, xxvi, 6-13. 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 187 

ointment sold and given to the poor?'' is so very 
plausible that, at the first blush, one is inclined 
to think that it would best become Jesus him- 
self to have made it, seeing that he had so spe- 
cial an interest in the poor. But no, he disre- 
gards the suggestion, postpones the claims of 
the poor, and accepts and appropriates to him- 
self the precious ointment, declaring that Mary 
was doing rightly. 

We have here, by the way, one of those inci- 
dents in the history which seem at first sight to 
be at variance with the spirit of his character. 
He is represented as being indiflferent to those 
to whose welfare he was devoting his life. But 
under the apparent contradiction, only a finer 
consistency is revealed. All the circumstances 
of the occasion being considered, we perceive 
a tenderness of mind and a truth of feeling 
which only a person of profound humanity 
could have evinced. 

In the coincidence of this act of Mary with 
his situation as a man doomed to die, and that 
so shortly that he seemed to himself all but 
prepared for the last offices, he discerned a 
significance so sacred as to outweigh far all the 



188 THOUGHTS ON 

good, of whicli the mere commercial worth of 
the ointment might have been the means. Not 
that any calculation of the different uses of the 
costly ointment passed through his mind. It is 
the delicate and yet healthy tenderness of his 
sensibility, his "reason above reason," that im- 
presses us. As the ointment, doubtless, was of 
that costly kind kept almost exclusively for the 
dead, when its rich funereal perfume struck his 
sense, there was given in his mind the added 
sacredness of death to the already holy senti- 
ment of reverent affection, which prompted 
Mary to the act ; a sentiment not to be frus- 
trated for any ordinary reason, a sentiment 
more nourishing to the world than a thousand 
deeds of common charity. How natural was it, 
in the then state of his mind, looking on him- 
self as on the brink of the grave, that this act 
of Mary's should impress him so profoundly ! 
He could not but have regarded it, at such a 
moment, as an offering of affection, pure even 
to sanctity, and as suggested rather by a Divine 
impulse than by any common human feeling. 
And what must have rendered it to the last 
degree impressive, was the strong contrast in 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 189 

which it stood out with the coarse-mindedness 
that grudged him this last expression of per- 
sonal affection. 

Again. When he told his disciples that one 
of them w^as about to prove false, — a fact, 
which, as he said, he informed them of before- 
hand, that they might continue to believe in 
him afterwards, recollecting then, as they would 
recollect, that he had been prepared for all that 
happened, — the care he shows not to mention 
the name of Judas, to avoid betraying his be- 
trayer to the indignation of his fellow-disciples, 
evinces a generosity so delicate, that, when we 
once appreciate it, we shall hesitate long before 
we venture to represent him as under any moral 
delusion whatever. One, so clear-sighted as he 
is seen to be on these different occasions, is not 
to be charged with being misled by private 
aims or strong national prejudices, certainly not 
by any one who does not claim to possess a 
moral sense equally delicate and true. 



That he never shows his Hebrew blood in 
his mind, that he was a stranger to the pride of 



190 THOUGHTS ON 

birth, for instance, so characteristic of the 
descendants of Abraham, I am far from saying. 
On more than one occasion, the Jewish senti- 
ment is evident in him. But then the manifes- 
tation of it is either perfectly innocent; or, 
what is more striking, it is attended by circum- 
stances which render the final impression one 
of great liberality. 

I say his Jewish blood shows itself sometimes 
very innocently ; and, in so saying, I have in 
mind his indignant address to the ruler of the 
synagogue, who objected to the cure on the 
Sabbath of the woman who had been a sufferer 
for eighteen years. ''Hypocrite!" exclaimed 
Jesus, '' is there a man of you that does not on 
the Sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the 
stall and lead him away to watering? And 
ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abra- 
ham^ whom Satan hath bound, lo ! these eigh- 
teen years, be loosed from this bond on the 
Sabbath-day?"^ In this allusion to the woman's 
Hebrew origin, do we not catch a tone of the 
proud ancestral instinct of the Jew ? 

Again, the Jew is recognizable in the sur- 

' Luke xiii, 10-17. 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 191 

prise whicli he expressed at the faith of the 
Roman Centurion.^ He evidently did not look 
for it. He had not thought it possible to find 
such susceptibility to good impressions in a 
Gentile. But then the liberal tendency of his 
mind is seen in the grand hint which he catches 
from the faith of the Centurion^ Through this 
unlooked-for instance, as through a rent in the 
veil of Futurity, he looks forth, and, in inter- 
preting the faith of the Roman as a revelation 
of human nature, he sees men coming to the 
knowledge of Truth from the remotest quarters 
of the earth. While his astonishment discloses 
the Jew, with instinctive openness he leaps to 
the largest inferences, and shows that he con- 
templated an influence extending far beyond 
his own nation. 

He manifests his Jewish birth and culture in 
the zeal for the sanctity of the Temple, that 
prompted him to take a whip of small cords,^ 
and drive from the sacred inclosure those w^ho, 
in the blind eagerness for gain, had encroached 
upon it with their tables for the exchange of 
money, and their doves, and other animals, 

' Matt, viii, 10. ^ Jesus and his Biograpliers, 



192 THOUGHTS ON 

offered for sale to those who desired victims for 
the altar. I suppose there was no one thing 
that he did, more likely than this, to make him 
popular with the masses. They could under- 
stand an enthusiastic reverence for the Temple, 
while they were insensible to the sanctity of 
human rights. They were not peculiar in this 
respect. 

But the most marked manifestation of Jewish 
feeling appears in his treatment of the Gentile 
mother who came entreating him to heal her 
daughter.^ She annoyed him, according to the 
accounts, by her importunity. He was en- 
deavoring to escape public notice. He had 
some urgent reason, so the narrative authorizes 
us to infer, — it does not state it, — to avoid being 
recognized. ''He entered into a house and 
would have no man know it. But he could 
not be hid," because this woman called out 
after him, imploring his pity. For a space he 
took no notice of her. And when his disciples 
begged him to send her away, he intimated in 
reply that he should pay no attention to her 
request, as his concern was, not for Gentiles, 

» Matt. XV, 25 ; Mark vii, 25. 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 193 

but for ''the lost sheep of the house of Israeh" 
But she came and threw herself down before 
him saying, ''Sir, help me." He replied, "Let 
the children first he fed^ for it is not meet to take 
the children's hread^ and east it to the dogs.'' This 
is the language of a Jew, of one who looked 
upon Gentiles as dogs in comparison with 
Israelites, the children of the great Household. 
But Jesus either spoke thus, conforming with- 
out thought to the mode of speaking belonging 
to the place and the time, in order to repulse 
this foreign woman, or curious to hear what she 
would say, he used this phraseology to discover 
whether she were in earnest. In either case, I 
do not know which is most impressive, the faith. 
of the woman which would not be repulsed, or 
the promptness with, which he yielded to her 
request, acknowledging her faith. Harsh as 
his words sound, I doubt whether there were 
any tone of harshness in his voice, any severity 
in his look. The woman's senses, sharpened 
by her great need, doubtless beheld in that 
countenance the light, and heard in that voice 
the music of his commanding humanity. After 
all, however we may think of his words, liis act 

n 



194 THOUGHTS ON 

was humane, and lie commended and rewarded 
the woman's faith. Although he felt himself 
bound to labor only among his countrymen, — 
and it was the part of wisdom thus to concen- 
trate his efforts, — yet he was not bigoted to this 
restriction. He did not make it a matter of 
conscience, or he would not have treated this 
Gentile as a daughter of Abraham, as he did 
when he yielded to her request. 

But all these marks of his Hebrew blood 
serve only to set off the predominant liberality 
of his thoughts. Perceiving that he thus be- 
longed to a nation as bigoted as the world 
has ever seen, we are only the more struck 
with the fact that he should have conceived, for 
instance, the parable of the Good Samaritan. 
What could be more offensive to Jewish pride 
than the contrast made so boldly in this parable 
between a Priest and a Levite on the one hand, 
and a despised Samaritan on the other. The 
Parable of the Pharisee and the Publican is 
indicative of the same large, z^Tz-Jewish temper 
of mind. It evinces the decisive superiority of 
Jesus to the vulgar prejudices of his country- 
men. The Pharisees were the leading men in 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 195 

the religious world of the day ; and how per- 
sonally insulting this parable must have been to 
their whole body, it is not difficult to imagine. 
They must have thought his language, in refer- 
ence to them, very abusive. 

After all, in the best sense of the name, he 
was indeed a Hebrew of the Hebrews, 'the 
bright consummate flower' of that great race 
whose religious distinction it was that for the 
Being they worshipped they knew no symbol. 
As the nation went down in blood and ruin, its 
spirit escaped and arose in him in full-orbed 
splendor, and in him the lofty Hebrew element 
is still vital in the world. 



It may be asked, by the way, how the daugh- 
ter of the Syro-Phoonician w^oman was healed 
when she was not present. She was sufiering, 
as I judge from the accounts, from one of those 
nervous diseases which are peculiarly sensitive 
to the influence of impressions made on the 
mind. It surely is not difficult to imagine how 
much the bare fact that her mother had gone 



196 THOUGHTS ON 

to seek the aid of one, the report of whose 
wonderful power was everywhere causing the 
greatest excitement, must have wrought to 
elate the mind of the suffering daughter. If we 
suppose, as we may very naturally, that the 
confidence of the mother in the power of Jesus 
had been expressed in the presence of her child, 
before she left home, we can easily see how her 
going for him must have so affected the daugh- 
ter, that her cure may really have begun before 
the mother's return. And when the mother 
did return, every feature beaming with faith, 
the cure was made complete. Thus, through 
sj'mpathy, the faith of the mother sufficed for 
the relief of her daughter. 

So great was the faith of this woman that her 
daughter would be well if Jesus only said the 
word, that, upon receiving the desired assurance 
from him, she went away perfectly satisfied. If 
it be difficult for us to believe in the existence 
of a faith so strong, it is so, only because we do 
not duly consider the circumstances, nor bear 
in mind the overpowering influence which a 
great public excitement has upon individual 
minds. Mr. Carlyle, in his History of the 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 197 

French Eevolution — a work as extraordinary in 
Historical Literature as the event which it 
records was in human affairs, — has given us a 
vivid idea of the frenzy of ' preternatural sus- 
picion/ which then seized the French people. 
The mind of the nation, wrenched away from 
its old habitudes, at one time ascended into 
a heaven of hope, and at another, went reel- 
ing down, sweeping resistlessly along with it 
the wisest and the most cool, into a very hell 
of fear and distrust, in which the ravings of 
madness were received as the inspirations of 
wisdom. But is it necessary to refer to such an 
extreme case in order to perceive how helpless 
individuals are against any passion or belief 
when once it has become epidemic ? The his- 
tory of the commercial world, the last place one 
would think to look for them, is full of instances 
of men the most phlegmatic, entertaining as 
the suggestions of prudence, speculations as 
wild as the tales of the Orient. 

Now I am at a loss to conceive how it could 
have been otherwise than that, after a few only 
of the wonderful works of Jesus had been wit- 
nessed and rumored abroad, there should have 

17* 



198 THOUGHTS ON 

arisen a very whirlwind of faith in the public 
mind, by the force of w^hich, individuals, espe- 
cially if they or theirs were suffering under any 
physical infirmity, were caught up, lifted off" 
their feet, raised to such a height of confidence 
in the power of Jesus as is shown in the Roman 
Centurion and the Syro-Phoenician woman, both 
of whom required only a word from him to in- 
sure the instant recovery of their absent chil- 
dren ; and in the woman who came to Jesus 
and was healed by a mere touch of his gar- 
ments. What distinguished the public excite- 
ment which he caused from those other in- 
stances of a like nature, to which I have just 
referred, was, that it was no delusion. There 
was an adequate cause for it. It was the effect, 
the reverberation of the transcendent faith of 
Jesus himself. 



Ix the account of the conversation between 
Jesus and the woman of Samaria, the following 
declaration is attributed to him : " Ye worship 



THE LIFE OE JESUS, 199 

ye know not ivhat ; loe know ivhat we ivorsJiip^ for 
salvation is of the Jews,''^ 

I cannot persuade myself that lie ever uttered 
these words, not merely because they are so 
intensely Jewish, but also because they have no 
living connection with the passage in which 
they are found, but break violently in upon the 
great thoughts expressed. They have all the 
sound of an interpolation caused by some early 
transcriber with a strong Jewish prejudice 
against the Samaritans. 



I HAVE remarked that no one has ever lived, 
of whom, from the accounts that have come to 
us, we may form so vivid an idea as of Jesus of 
Nazareth. There need be no doubt as to his 
essential qualities. And the reason is, that the 
incidents which make up his history are singu- 
larly personal. The history is never abstract, 
but circumstantial from beginning to end. 

Being of this description, the facts are found 
to be just such as always impress themselves 

' John iv, 22. 



200 THOUGHTS ON 

upon the minds of those who had part in them, 
beyond the possibility of being forgotten. 
There is scarcely an incident in the Four Gos- 
pels, which, when fully considered, with all its 
probable concomitants, is not perceived to be 
precisely of this memorable character. The 
powerful personality of Jesus took into itself 
the circumstances that surrounded it, and com- 
municated to them, with its color and life, its 
immortality also. Whatever act he did and 
whatever word he uttered instantly rendered 
the spot and the moment remarkable, never to 
be forgotten by those present. So that, had he 
acted and spoken with a studied reference to a 
science of Mnemonics, he could not have pro- 
vided more efiectually for the preservation of 
his words and works. He wrote nothing; 
neither did he direct others to record his teach- 
ings and his life. There was no manner of 
need. The circumstances, in which he lived 
and spoke, set off so many at least of his say- 
ings and doings as have come down to us, in a 
way so impressive that they were sure to be 
recorded. And yet those circumstances were 
not in themselves peculiar. Oftentimes they 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 201 

were of the homeliest household sort. But 
such were his utterances in connection with 
them, that both together formed events of a 
marked and imperishable significance. And 
thus his every word became a Scripture, not 
writ with hands, nor in artificial characters, 
upon parchment or paper, but recorded, as all 
God's Scriptures are, in actual Life, and beyond 
the possibility of loss or erasure. 

When, for instance, he turned and said to 
the crowd that was pressing upon him, their 
minds all burning with hopes of national deliver- 
ance, '' If a man hate not his father and mother^ 
yea^ and his oivn life also, he cannot go with me. 
He^ who ivould indeed folloiv me^ must tahe his 
cross and come after me to execution^'" how was it 
possible that such words, uttered under such 
circumstances, could ever be forgotten ? Most 
certain were they to be preserved in vivid 
remembrance, and, though beld for a time in 
solution in the living hearts of men, yet to be 
precipitated at last, rather by a law of nature 
than by human design, in w^ritten characters on 
the page of history, 

I think, as I have said, that nearly every 



202 THOUGHTS ON 

recorded incident of the Life of Jesus will vin- 
dicate its truth and immortality by being found, 
upon examination, to have been originally thus 
striking. 

And then again how much did the allegorical 
style of his teachings insure their being re- 
membered ? The truths which he taught were 
thus given in the form of pictures, to seize and 
retain which, the mind is by its very nature 
prepared with as much nicety as the plates of 
Daguerre for the action of the light. They 
could not be forgotten. Jesus delivered no ab- 
stract discourses. Everything that he touched, 
were it with only the hem of his garment, 
instantly started into life, prepared to do his 
bidding. He made all things his heralds. All 
joined his retinue, demonstrating his authority, 
gracing the triumph of his truth. 



Mr. Parkeii inclines to think that the loftiest 
sayings of Jesus are genuine. But what if it 
may be made to appear that nearly all his 
recorded sayings are lofty ? Much that he said 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 203 

and did is omitted. Granted. But according 
to my friend's thinking and mine, it is only the 
most striking things that have been recorded. 
The probability is, that what is lost was not so 
remarkable as what has been preserved. It is 
only of the last few hours of the life of Jesus, 
that we have anything like a regular narrative ; 
which is as it should be. That was undoubtedly 
the most momentous part of his history. Then 
it was that his lofty spirit was put to the 
severest test, and manifested itself most impres- 
sively. The rest of the history is hardly any- 
thing more than a compilation of separate inci- 
dents, I suppose the most striking, put together, 
with so little observance of any order, that, as I 
have said, it is not possible to determine now, 
with any degree of certainty, how long his 
public career continued, whether two, three, or 
four years. 



As I have just remarked, the brief biogra- 
phies of Jesus are made up of personal anec- 
dotes, of precisely such particulars as not only 
are best remembered, but as best give us an 



204 THOUGHTS ON 

insight into personal character. Incidents of 
that personal kind which we so often miss in 
the biographies of remarkable men, far more 
significant than any ofilcial details, compose the 
history of Jesus. 

No one who has ever lived has proved to be 
so truly a public personage as he. And yet 
the Four Gospels are, to a singular degree, the 
accounts of a private life. They disclose to us 
his inmost heart, his most intimate personal 
relations, his deepest privacy. Most of the 
occasions on which he appears before us in 
these histories, are domestic and incidental. 
"We behold him with his personal friends ; we 
listen to him in his conversations with private 
individuals, in sudden and unlooked-for ren- 
contres with strangers and with opponents, and 
in his profoundest solitude. 

Of almost all other eminent persons, the pri- 
vate portion of their lives is commonplace, 
having little forcible enough to cause itself to 
be recorded. We know nothing of them, ex- 
cept in some formal relation to the public, 
which seldom enables us to know them as they 
were. We see them only in some public posi- 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 205 

tion ; and in that position so hidden under the 
robes of office, so disguised and decorated and 
put upon their best behavior, that we have a 
misgiving all the time that the real persons are 
not there. We long to see them in undress, in 
their private and unguarded moments ; or when 
we chance to see them thus, we find that, when 
divested of their stars and ribbons, they are 
stript of their greatness also. 

In this respect, the case of the Man of Naza- 
reth is most singular. His very heart is laid 
bare to ns. We are permitted to look in upon 
his awful solitude, on that last night, when in 
his mortal agony he was all alone in the Uni- 
verse with God ; and never is he greater. 



What a world — what a very heaven of gene- 
rosity is thrown open to us in him on the night 
before his execution, when, although the black 
Cross was so close to him that it covered him 
with its shadow, he yet lost himself in the 
generous office of comforting his aflrighted and 
stricken friends, an office for which he received 

18 



206 THOUGHTS ON 

no return, not even the solacing thought that 
they appreciated his purpose and position. 

By means of these artless narratives, we 
penetrate the thick gloom of that saddest of all 
nights, and, transported thither by the magnet- 
ism of a common nature, we join that weeping 
company, Jesus and the Eleven, as they wend 
their melancholy way, in the dark, to the 
garden which he loved. It is no wonder that 
the memory of every other of his many visits to 
that favorite resort was blotted out in the re- 
membrance of the last. The tender tones of a 
voice, modulated by the utmost sincerity and 
the most devoted affection, come to us through 
the night. Every word and every movement, 
from the moment when, with his three most 
intimate friends, he parts from the rest of the 
disciples, are in thrilling unison with the laws 
of our common humanity. The solitude and 
the midnight hour have their natural effect 
upon him. After the superhuman strength 
with which, in order to comfort his dismayed 
followers, he had held aside his own sorrows, 
there came a natural revulsion, and they rushed 
upon him with a crushing weight, and literally 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 207 

prostrated him to the earth. His friends, be- 
wildered by the darkness which had suddenly 
gathered around all their bright hopes, were 
utterly helpless to comfort him. The conscious- 
ness of his lonely situation fills him with such 
exceeding anguish that it seemed to him, as he 
told them, that he should die. But they have 
no word of consolation for him. Stupefied 
and exhausted by grief, they fall asleep, and he 
is left all alone in his agony. But out of that 
midnight gloom, out of that deadly conflict 
came the immortal saying, thenceforth the 
sacred battle-cry of the soul's victory over all 
mortal sorrows : ''Not my will, hit thine, Crod, 
he done r' 

It is precisely this portion of his life that is 
best fitted to show us just what manner of 
spirit he was of, which is most minutely told. 
In what other biography that was ever written, 
are the retired and most private hours of the 
subject of it so thrown open to our view? 
What other human being has ever been shown 
to us, so exactly as he was, to the very centre 
of him, in his own isolated personality, cut off* 
from all human supports ? "What other human 



203 THOUGHTS ON 

being has been thus probed to the very soul 
and found to be so thoroughly true, so divinely 
beautiful ? 



The more I study these Notices of the Life 
of Jesus, the more wonderful do they grow. It 
must be owing to their exceeding simplicity 
that we have failed to be impressed by their 
truth. They are as simple as Nature, as simple 
as Jesus himself. And therefore we have been 
as unconscious of their intrinsic vitality as we 
are of the air that we breathe, or of the light 
which, invisible itself, reveals the beauty of the 
world ; and we find fault with them because 
they are not what we have ignorantly assumed 
that they ought to be. 

I cannot tell, — I hardly care to know, — when 
they were written or by whom. The most 
complete biographies of the authors of these 
books could tell me nothing of them that could 
increase the confidence and respect which the 
books themselves inspire. How these writings 
took their present shape is a mystery. I am 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 209 

inclined to think that originally they appeared 
not in their present shape but in a fragmentary 
form. Luke states at the commencement of 
his gospel that there were many accounts of 
Jesus published, and that, others having under- 
taken the work, he had determined to attempt it 
also, as he knew the whole story. It is evident, 
upon an examination of Luke's gospel, that 
he made use of accounts previously published, 
and arranged them according to his idea of 
their connection, not always putting them in 
their right places. 

But whatever was the origin of these histo- 
ries, it is clear that they are the works of hands 
unpractised in the art of writing, and writing 
with just such indifference to style and effect 
as must exist where the sense of truth is so ab- 
sorbing as to leave no room for other motives 
to act. They are the writings of persons who 
knew. They are very models of the careless, 
unguarded freedom of Truth. Minute as they 
are in their narrations, they constantly leave 
numerous and important particulars to be in- 
ferred. It is true they show themselves to bo 
imbued with the errors and superstitions of 

18^ 



210 THOUGHTS ON 

tlieir times. Mixed up witli their histories are 
things fabulous; and to ordinary events is 
sometimes given the air of miracles. In John's 
gospel, the writer not only narrates, he dis- 
courses. He pauses to explain. And often his 
style of thought and expression is so prominent 
as almost to hide all trace of Jesus himself.^ 
Nevertheless, all these four books are made up, 
for the most part, of circumstantial narratives, 
wrought all over with those marks of truth 
which, when rightly taken, produce a perfect 
sense of reality. 

Let the enigma then of the origin of these 
writings remain unsolved and insoluble, their in- 
trinsic character continues the same. Still they 
show themselves to be inspired writings, full of 
the inspiration of Nature and Truth. They 
grew as naturally as any plant, and had the 
same oririn. 



It is no decisive proof that certain events 

^ See John i, 1-18 ; iii, 13-21, 31-36. Traces of the writer 
are discernible here and there, in ch. v and vi, and in chh. xiv, 
XV, xvi, and xvii, and elsewhere. 



THE LIFE OE JESUS. 211 

have not happened, because they are imper- 
fectly reported. All that can be affirmed with 
truth is, that they may be so imperfectly re- 
ported that it is impossible to form any distinct 
idea of them, and therefore they might as well 
have not happened at all as to any knowledge 
that we can have of them. 

I admit that the N"ew Testament reports are 
defective. But are they defective to this ex- 
tent, or in such a manner as to render it impos- 
sible to ascertain the truth ? I answer, 

1. They are not defective through any inten- 
tion on the part of their authors to falsify ; nor 

2. Are the facts themselves of a nature diffi- 
cult to be correctly reported. 

But they are defective because they are writ- 
ten without art or care. As the writers arc 
entirely off their guard, their very carelessness 
being occasioned by their confidence in the 
reality of what they relate, we may infer the 
cause from its effects ; and their very omissions 
and mistakes furnish us with the most satisfac- 
tory means of determining the truth. 

The character of the Four Gospels being 
such as it is, I affirm that their contents arc 



212 THOUGHTS ON 

true, not although, but because they are imper- 
fect. Supposing the events, which they record, 
to have actually taken place, are not the Gos- 
pels precisely such narratives as ought to have 
been expected ? Who was there among those, 
conversant with the facts, qualified to give us 
any other than just such accounts as these? 
There is a natural accordance between the facts 
and the probable historians. Any other than 
just such rude and artless narratives as these 
would have been entirely out of place. A life, 
spent as the life of Jesus is represented to have 
been, among the lowly, could have found its 
historians only among that class. 



Thus artless, the Gospels are not always to 
be taken to the letter. The writers are not to 
be understood as if they were upon their oath. 
When it is stated, for instance, once and again, 
that 'great multitudes followed JesuSy and that he 
healed them all^'^ the commonest degree of fair- 

^ Matt, xii, 15 } xix, 2. 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 213 

ness forbids us to charge tlie narrator with 
intending to say that the multitudes were all 
suffering. The obvious fact is, that he wrote 
with the confidence of conscious, or uncon- 
scious, truth. Again, when, in the account of 
the agony of Jesus in the garden, the historian 
tells us that the only persons who were with 
Jesus at the time were asleep, and yet informs 
us of what he said and did on that occasion, it 
is only common candor to suppose that their 
slumber was not so unbroken but that one or 
all were awake long enough to see and hear the 
little that is related of him.^ 

There are numerous passages of this kind 
which have given rise to captious objections, 
only because the popular style and careless 
structure of the Records have been lost sight 
of, and a correctness of statement has been 
looked for, inconsistent with the character of 
the narrators. These cavils, which seem to me 
to be unworthy of any intelligent reader, 
abound in Strauss's Life of Jesus. They are 
directed at difiiculties which may remain unex- 
plained to the end of time, without involving 

' Matt, xxvi ; Mark xiv ; Luke xxii. 



214 THOUGHTS ON 

the essential truth of the facts recorded ; diffi- 
culties which, it is easy to see, a little more ful- 
ness in the narrative would have precluded. 
Some excuse, however, for the embarrassment 
they occasion lay-readers, may be found in 
those false ideas of the Four Gospels, which, 
representing them as written under the dicta- 
tion of the Holy Spirit, have authorized the 
demand for perfect accuracy, and caused a 
world of needless trouble.^ 



I SEE that the accounts of Jesus are fragmen- 
tary. I concede that they relate only a portion 
of his history, and that very briefly. The traces 
of the ignorance and simplicity of their authors 
are manifest. 

And yet, with these drawbacks, I value these 
writings not only as the most natural and as all 
that could be expected under the circumstances, 
but as absolutely the most satisfactory. Al- 

^ And yet, in Heaven's good providence, not wholly need- 
less. It is in the work of clearing away difficulties, that valu- 
able evidences of truth are brouo^ht to lio:ht. 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 215 

though they tell us only a portion of his life, it 
is by far the most important portion. And 
what is lacking in completeness is made up in 
effectiveness. "What is told is told in a way so 
truthful that the essential qualities of Jesus are 
rendered almost visible and palpable. The 
same absence of art, that renders the Gospels 
mere sketches, causes these sketches to be far 
more true to the life, far more full of the spirit 
of their subject than the most elaborately 
colored portrait by the practised hand of the 
most skilful artist. There is no study of effect, 
no anxiety shown to observe consistency. What 
they have to tell is shown with the freedom and 
simplicity of light. 



I CANNOT imagine any supposition more en- 
tirely needless than that, in the composition of 
these books, their authors were controlled by a 
special inspiration. They did not need any 
such inspiration. The idea that they wrote 
under the miraculous dictation of the Holy 
Spirit, and that no confidence can be put in 



216 THOUGHTS ON 

them unless tliey were so guided, implies that 
the facts and teachings, which make up the 
history of Jesus, were of so uncertain and ab- 
struse a character, that it was beyond the power 
of human observation, unaided, to report them 
correctly. Whereas his sayings and works 
were so simple, so easy of reception, both in 
their spirit and in their form, that no special 
provision was required to communicate the 
knowledge of them to the whole world. They 
needed no more care than Nature was sure to 
take. They were like the seeds of the thistle, 
which are tost to the wind to sow, and the 
wind sows them. 

Thus true to the method of ITature is the 
manner in which the History of Jesus was 
planted among mankind. The fowls of the air 
were on the wing. The ground was stony and 
thorns abounded. Nevertheless the living seed 
was cast abroad amidst numerous influences 
that threatened it with instant destruction. 
And although much now seems ,to be lost that 
he said or did, yet enough has remained to 
bring forth a hundred fold, and to sow a world 
with. New as his life was, yet was it so true 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 217 

to Nature that it came to its own, and could not 
but live in the memory of mankind. It took 
root in the world by the necessity of things. 



So far from there being any need of the 
miraculous dictation of the Holy Spirit to com- 
municate it, there was no need even of any 
human accomplishments to qualify the authors 
of the Gospels to tell the story truly. The 
most ordinary natural faculties sufficed. Men 
without any intellectual culture were abun- 
dantly competent, nay, they were the best fitted 
for the work, if they only had good sight and 
hearing, and honest minds. Happy is it that 
the truth of the story was not endangered by 
any conceit of the pen. Heaven be praised that 
Jesus lived neither among the rhetoricians of 
Greece, nor the philosophers of Alexandria ! 
His history is wrapt in no scholastic sophistica- 
tions. Had it been, what a mass of erudition, 
beyond the capacity of any German brain, 
would it have required to extricate it from that 
subtle web ! How small would have been the 

19 



218 THOUGHTS ON 

hope of getting any considerable part of it out 
whole ! I would as soon have undertaken to 
decipher the stone Scriptures of Ancient Egypt. 
What would have been the result had learned 
men had the writing of the Life of Jesus, we 
may form some idea, from what happened to 
Christianity when, in the course of time, it fell 
among the Platonizing fathers, who, unlike the 
thieves in the Parable, instead of stripping it 
bare, left it so crushed under the cumbrous and 
fanciful garments which they threw over it, that 
it is no wonder that many have come and 
looked at it and passed by on the other side, 
without any recognition of it. 



JSToTWiTHSTANDiNa all that I have suggested 
to account for the fact that so much of the Life 
of Jesus has been remembered, when so little 
was thought of preserving the memory of it at 
the time, it may still be thought difficult to be 
accounted for, that we should have as much as 
we have, and have it told so minutely. 

The truth is, with our best endeavors, we can 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 219 

form but a faint idea of the energy with which 
the words and works of Jesus wrought upon 
those who were in personal communication 
with him. Only think, it went to the extent of 
changing their personal characters. It drew 
them away from their old habits of life and 
made new men of them. Under the influence 
of the Life of Jesus, they left the little lake of 
Galilee, where they had toiled from boyhood, 
catching a daily pittance of fish, and launched 
boldly out into the great wild sea of the world, 
where they became fishers of men, casting 
abroad their nets amidst its foam and din, and 
gathering in great and fierce nations. The 
details, through which so commanding an in- 
fluence wrought on them, must have stamped 
themselves upon their minds with a vividness, 
of which, those who have had no similar expe- 
rience can form only the faintest idea. 



THOUGHTS 



HI 

It strikes me as very natural that Jesus 
sliould entitle that true spirit of mind which 
was in his disciples, and which he said would 
supply his place when he should he taken away 
from them, ''another Comforter'' While he 
was with them, and especially in those last 
hours of their intercourse, he was their Com- 
forter. When he should be parted from them, 
the spirit of Truth, which had first led them to 
him, would remain with them, leading them 
forever on to still higher truth, interpreting for 
them all their experience, making plain what 
was at first inexplicable ; this true spirit would 
be their heaven-sent Comforter and Guide, sup- 



THOUGHTS ON THE LIFE OF JESUS. 221 

plying, and more than supplying, his place. He 
could not remain with them. It was necessary 
for their sakes that he should be taken away, 
for, so long as he remained, their Jewish dreams 
would beguile them and keep them from as- 
cending to higher hopes. But the true Spirit, 
that other Comforter, would remain with them 
forever. 

This same Comforter and Teacher is as neces- 
sary to us as it was to them. No learning, no 
culture can compensate for its absence. We 
cannot advance a step toward the Truth with- 
out it. 



^'I AM the resurrection and the life: he that 
helieveth in me, though he were dead, yet will he 
live, and whosoever liveth and helieveth in me, will 
never die.'' A physician, who a short time 
since had been watching with me the last mo- 
ments of a friend, remarked to me afterwards 
that, often as he had witnessed death, he had 
never become familiar with it ; that it always 
impressed him afresh with a sense of mystery. 
Thus as death, although constantly occurring 

19* 



222 TnouGiiTS on 



and constantly witnessed, never loses its impres- 
siveness, so these loftj^ words of Jesus, asso- 
ciated as they are with death and burial, never 
grow commonplace. They always have the 
sound to me of an unfathomed simificance. 
There is a solemn charm in them which always 
attracts me. I have a persuasion that they 
contain the w^hole secret of our immortality. 
Never have words come from the lips of man 
so indefeasibly commanding. There is the ring 
in them of an unearthly authority, — the utter- 
ance of a king. 

"Were it not so, — if they have not a great 
meaning, a meaning that goes to the inmost 
being of us in answer to the instinct of our 
immortal nature, — in a word, if they are not 
vital with a great truth, how is it that whole 
nations and generations listen to them and re- 
peat them with an unbidden reverence, with an 
involuntary faith? How is it that minds most 
elevated by culture and philosophy can by no 
eflbrt make them sound otherwise than authori- 
tative and grand? If they are not profoundly 
true, what are they then, w^hat can they be but 
the incoherent ravings of the wildest insanity ! 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 223 

Call to mind the circumstances in which, the 
person by whom, and the place where, they 
were uttered. A poor youth, of very humble 
origin, and of no education apparently, in an 
obscure part of a remote province of the Eoman 
Empire, — it is such an one, who, surrounded 
by a few unlettered villagers like himself, ad- 
dresses these great words to a sister of a friend 
of his who had just died. Nothing could have 
been uttered more truly casual]}^, scarcely more 
privately. There was no preparation made for 
their utterance, no provision for their publica- 
tion. The world was not hushed into silence 
to hear. ISTo host of angels were in waiting, 
the instant they fell upon the air to take them 
up and sound them abroad over the whole 
earth. They were spoken in a small circle of 
private persons, and in the ordinary tone and 
course of familiar conversation. And yet they 
have fallen like drops of flame, and burnt them- 
selves into the heart of the world. And now 
at every Christian burial these words are re- 
peated. Not an hour passes in which they are 
not sounded as the cofiined remains of mor- 
tality are borne to their last repose from luxu- 



224 THOUGHTS ON 

rious mansions or from the abodes of the poor; 
in far-off wastes, in the wild mid-ocean. Every- 
where, in many tongues, these words are 
spoken amidst convulsive sobs and streaming 
tears, and at their sound an air of sanctity fills 
the place, and the crushing burthen of the 
sorest bereavement is lightened, and breaking 
hearts are soothed as by voices from heaven, 
and visions of the departed and the lamented, 
living again and transfigured, appear and dispel 
the gloom. 

Discharging for our sorrowing humanity this 
consolatory office, these words may well claim 
to be studied, for they must have in them the 
vital energy of Truth. To suppose that they 
could possess this power and yet be illusory, 
the ravings of a madman, as they must be, if 
they are not true, is to confound all distinctions, 
and virtually to pronounce Delusion as consola- 
tory as Truth. 

I consider this passage as one of the numer- 
ous instances in which, in our Common Ver- 
sion, will may be substituted for shall with great 
advantage. I cannot but be impressed, in con- 
nection with this passage, with the fact that 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 225 

Jesus, as I understand liim, never deals in arbi- 
trary promises and threats. He only asserts 
facts, the eternal laws of the spirit. I hold it 
to be of the first importance to a right under- 
standing of his teachings, that this character- 
istic of his words should be fully apprehended. 
It is a very simple point; but it affects our 
whole view of his religion, and shows it to rest 
on an immovable foundation. The doctrine of 
his supreme divinity has been so long and so 
widely prevalent, that, regarding him as the 
Supreme God, men have naturally understood 
him as announcing his own sovereign pleasure. 
Whereas he only asserts what is, or what is to be, 
independently of any will or choice of his. 
Thus, in the passage upon which I am now 
commenting, I understand him to affirm what 
is true in the nature of things : ' He that be- 
lieveth in me, though he were dead, yet will he 
live, and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, 
will never die.' Not arbitrary decrees, but natu- 
ral consequences are here expressed. 

We know nothing of Lazarus but what is 
contained in the brief statement that he was 
beloved by Jesus. But what a volume is there 



226 THOUGHTS ON 

in that! He could have been a person of no 
common character to stand in such a relation 
to Jesus. Although it would seem that he had 
no gifts qualifying him for pablic action, and 
that he was of a class seldom known but to a 
few, yet he must have been a man of no ordi- 
nary worth. Those, whom Jesus loved, al- 
though they may have had no ability to coope- 
rate with him, and he never summoned them 
to his aid, must, on this very account, have been 
possessed of endearing qualities. That Lazarus 
was susceptible of great strength of affection 
the result testifies. 

One of the inscrutable secrets of our being, 
which, because it is so common, we overlook, 
or never adequately appreciate, is the sympathy 
of mind with mind. Galvanic and magnetic 
currents are feeble and sluggish in comparison 
with those spiritual sympathies that make us 
one. Our life is not contained within our cor- 
poreal frames. We live in those we love, and 
they live in us. The life of our life is in beings 
external to us, from whom we derive it through 
our affections. It is a great mystery. 

One of these intimate vital unions existed 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 227 

between Jesus and Lazarus, — no superficial 
relation, such as the world names friendship. 
Think only what implicit confidence, what pro- 
found veneration Jesus must have inspired. 
Perfect sincerity, saintly purity, a godlike mag- 
nanimity, and a woman's tenderness, — these 
qualities could have created in the bosom of 
Lazarus no every-day affection. Think too 
what a power Truth must have been, coming 
from such lips ! Through his veneration for 
Jesus, Lazarus must have been made conscious 
before he died of a life new and deep, since the 
most vital sentiments of our being were in him 
so mightily stimulated into activity. And when 
he fell asleep in death, this deep, strong life of 
the affections was all there. Through all his 
illness, with the last wanderings of his mind, 
when all grew dreamy, I doubt not, the idea 
of his revered friend flitted perpetually before 
him. 

And did this strong inner life come to an 
end when the lungs ceased to heave and the 
pulse to beat ? "VVe do not know. We do not 
know, unless indeed we gather some hint from 
this great history, what effect death has upon 



228 THOUGHTS ON 

the immaterial part of us. How difficult is it 
to bring men to perceive that they reallj^clo not 
know what death is !^ AYe assume, but without 

^ In order to know what death is, should we not first know 
what Life is, since death is an event or change in the natural 
history of Life? But '^the general notion of life is acknow- 
ledged by the most profound philosophers to be dim and 
mysterious up to the present time." ^^ Though Harvey's 
glory rested upon his having proved the reality of certain 
mechanical movements and actions in the blood, this dis- 
covery, and all other physiological truths, necessarily involved 
the assumption of some peculiar agency belonging to living 
things, different both from mechanical agency and from 
chemical ; and in short, something vitalj and not physical 
merely. For when it was seen that the pulsation of the 
heart, its systole and diastole^ caused the circulation of the 
blood, it might still be asked, what force caused this con- 
stantly recurring contraction and expansion V ^' We can 
trace the motions of the animal fluids, as Kepler traced the 
motions of the planets, but when we seek to render a reason 
for these motions, like him, we recur to terms of a wide and 
profound, but mysterious import." [History of the Inductive 
Sciences, by W. Wheicell.) Since we are thus confessedly 
ignorant of the central life of our being, it is assuming more 
than we know to say positively how it is, or to what extent, 
this unknown life is afiPected by death, unless indeed we bring 
into view the great facts of the life of Jesus bearing upon this 
point. Then light begins to shine into the mystery. 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 229 

authority, that it is the instant termination of 
all life. But we really do not know. The 
living sympathize with the dead. To the 
living, the dead are still objects of thought and 
affection. We do not so positively know that 
death puts an end to all the life that is in us, 
that we may not ask : Do not the dead, on the 
other hand, still sympathize with the living? 
Are we not present in their thoughts as they 
are in ours ? It may not be affirmed that they 
do not remember us; and in this passage in the 
history of Jesus, holding it to be true, I have 
positive grounds for believing that they do ; 
that the dead are still mysteriously bound to 
the living, even as the living are bound by the 
mysterious tie of memory to the dead. 

The presence of Jesus at Bethanj^, during the 
sickness of his friend, was anxiously looked 
for. He delayed his visit, however, until the 
intelligence came to him that Lazarus was 
dead. As soon as she heard that he was 
coming and was near at hand, Martha, one of 
the sisters of the deceased, hastened to meet 
him. It was when she met him, that the con- 
versation took place in which Jesus gave utter- 

20 



230 THOUGHTS ON 

ance to the words whose meaning I seek to 
penetrate. " Then said Martha to Jesus, Lord, 
if thou hadst been here, my brother had not 
died. But I know that, even now, whatsoever 
thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee.'' 
By this last remark she may have intended 
merely to say that, although he had not come 
to restore her brother to health, she neverthe- 
less still believed that he could do whatever he 
chose, — receive whatever he asked. But I 
think she meant more than this, that she de- 
signed distantly to hint that, if he so willed, he 
might even then give back Lazarus to them. 
But when in reply he declared, in so many 
words, that her brother would rise again, she 
is, very naturally, staggered. She could bear 
to hint distantly herself at the restoration of 
her brother to life, not fully appreciating the 
greatness of the thought, or rather, not fully 
stating it even to her own mind. But when it 
was presented to her mind by another, in full 
front, and in no half-light, it was too much 
for her; she instantly recoiled from the bold 
idea, and took refuge in a profession of her 
faith in a final resurrection. ^^I know," she 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 231 

rejoined, "that he will rise again in the resur- 
rection, at the last day." Then came the 
memorable words, immortal as the Spirit of 
Jesus: " I am the resurrection and the life: He 
that trusts in me^ though he were dead, yet will he 
live, and whosoever liveth and trusteth in me, will 
never die,'' Martha had just expressed the 
familiar, established idea of a future resurrec- 
tion, the popularly received doctrine of the day, 
a resurrection to take place at some indefinite 
future period. Instantly, in answer to Martha, 
and in opposition, as I conceive, to the old 
idea, Jesus asserted the possibility of an imme- 
diate, present resurrection, of an instant de- 
liverance from death : "I am the resurrection." 
'I have that within me which, now, on the 
spot, communicates an imperishable life both 
to the dead and to the living.' 

In the rare development of his moral nature, 
in the fulness of his knowledge of the highest 
Truth, and his entire identification with it, he 
was conscious of that powerful life which there 
is in Truth, and which death cannot touch. 
Have we never had any experience that gave us 
a hint, distant indeed, but still a hint of the pro- 



232 THOUGHTS ON 

found consciousness of life from which Jesus 
spoke ? Have we never had the happiness of 
having some great truth, some broad principle 
of Eight, impress us so deeply as to create in 
us a conviction that here was something inde- 
structible — something which was of Eternity ? 
Only let truth which is truth, high and large 
and beyond all dispute, be once heartily re- 
ceived, let the higher sentiments of our nature 
be called forth, and we shall have a conviction 
created in us that we too are in communica- 
tion, I had almost said in palpable contact, with 
the Infinite and the Everlasting. A profound 
sense of Truth is a profound sense of Power, of 
Life. 

Such, I believe, was, not the occasional, but 
the deep and settled consciousness of Jesus, 
and hence he had his being in an eternal 
sphere. In loving what he loved with such entire- 
ness of affection, he loved the imperishable, and 
his love, which ivas his life, consciously partook of 
the immortal nature of its object. And so full, 
full to overflowing, was this faith of his, not in 
a future, but in a present immortality, that, 
conscious as he was besides of that extraordi- 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 233 

nary power with, which he was by nature en- 
dowed, he knew, — he could not help knowing, 
— that there was an inexhaustible spring of life 
at hand. He felt it within him. 

And that such was the case, I think is clearly 
shown in the explanation he immediately pro- 
ceeded to give of the lofty claim which he 
makes. It was in no mystical sense, but in a 
way perfectly simple and natural, that he w^as 
the resurrection and the life. It was only as 
he was believed in that he became thus power- 
ful. He explains his meaning: ^'He that be- 
lieves in me, though he were dead, yet will 
live, and whosoever living believes in me, will 
never die." 

We must take care, in reading this passage, 
to dismiss from our minds all theological defi- 
nitions of faith. By belief is meant here the 
reliance of the heart, not an assent of the in- 
tellect, but an active sentiment, a profound 
aflection for the Highest and the Holiest. 

It is observable that, while Jesus expresses 
himself in the form of general proposition, and 
appears to be stating general truths, there must 
have been in the mind of Martha an immediate 

20- 



234: THOUGHTS ON 

and exclusive application of his words to her 
dead brother and to herself. Nay, I believe 
that Jesus himself, when he expressed himself 
thuSj was thinking only of Lazarus, and of Mar- 
tha to whom he was speaking. Lazarus was, 
at that moment, the all-engrossing thought of 
both. In fact, it may be inferred from the very 
form of his expressions, indefinite, universal, 
that he spoke from the deep emotion which the 
occasion was fitted to awaken. When we are 
greatly moved, nothing is more natural than to 
give utterance to our excited feelings in terms 
of universal import. It is the natural language 
of deep feeling. 

Thus, while Jesus, speaking from that trans- 
cendent consciousness of life which glowed 
steadily, like the Vestal fire, in his soul, declared 
that whoever had faith in him would live, 
though he were dead, and whoso living believed 
in him would never die, he had exclusively in 
mind at the moment his friend recently de- 
ceased, and the present living sister of the 
dead. 

And she so understood him, — understood 
him precisely as if he had said in so many 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 235 

words : ' Thy brother, who believed in me, 
though he is dead, yet will live again ; and 
thou, who art living and believing in me, wilt 
never die. Believest thou this?' Had she 
taken from his words only the general ideas, 
which from the general form of his language 
seem at first sight all that was expressed, she 
would have had but little difficulty in giving 
them her direct assent. But it was because she 
took his words, — as it was so natural for her to 
do under the circumstances, — in direct applica- 
tion to her buried brother and to herself, that 
she was again staggered by the startling bold- 
ness of his thoughts. Again she falls back 
upon a general profession of her faith in him. 
She could honestly say that she believed 
what he said only by adducing the warrant of 
her faith in him in a general way : 'Yea, Lord, 
I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of 
God that should come into the world.' And, 
upon this, evidently becoming conscious of her 
inability to sustain the conversation with him, 
she retreated and went to summon her sister. 
It is not stated that Jesus had expressed any 
desire to see Mary. lie may have done so. 



236 THOUGHTS ON % 

But even if he had not, it was very natural that 
Martha should have retired, as she did, and 
told Mary that Jesus wanted her. Martha 
knew how her sister always listened to him 
with the profoundest interest, and seemed to 
understand him so much better than she. Mary 
therefore, she felt, was needed there. 

Taking the words of Jesus in the application, 
which they were originally understood and in- 
tended to have, to Lazarus and Martha, I 
understand Jesus to declare that Lazarus, 
having passed into that mysterious condition, 
which we name death, cherishing a confidence in 
him, which was a confidence in the truth which 
he represented, was, through that faith, still 
living. Indeed, Lazarus was so truly and pro- 
foundly living, his faith in Jesus was so ardent 
and deep, that, when Jesus called to him in his 
grave, Lazarus heard the beloved voice, and 
was in such deep sympathy with Jesus, that his 
life returned again to the body. 

We insist that we know what death is. But 
Jesus here, in language most emphatic, declares 
that this event is so much aftected by what he 
calls faith, that it is death, according to the 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 237 

common understanding, no more. He asserts 
the existence of a life in the individual being, 
which death cannot disturb, a life so deep and 
strong, that, in the instance of Lazarus, when 
appealed to or stimulated by that singular and 
more than magnetic power which Jesus pos- 
sessed, it could be recalled and made to re- 
animate the body, even so long after the physi- 
cal event of death as the fourth day. In fine, 
the idea of Jesus is, that death is not what it is 
popularly represented to be. It is not the dis- 
solution of the personal being. The personal 
life is unaffected by it. 

We thus have an exposition of the natural 
law or conditions under which this great fact, 
the resurrection of Lazarus, occurred. 

Thus interpreted, this event, while it illus- 
trates the simple and majestic bearing of Jesus, 
pours a great light upon the mystery of death, 
which we may now learn to regard as a mere 
physical change in the natural history of the 
human spirit, like birth, growth, and sleep. 

Our true life, so the resurrection of Lazarus 
attests, is not in the material frame but in our 
moral affections, in that which is the indestruc- 



238 THOUGHTS ON 

tible germ of the body. It is in that interior 
being which apprehends . the True and the 
Eight, and is capable of loving infinitely and 
aspiring forever. 



We are all born into an imperishable life by 
virtue of this higher nature, this power of 
loving the Highest and Best with an ever-grow- 
ing afiection. 

But there is a great variety of degrees in tbe 
growth and unfolding of the immortal part of 
us. Some, after dwelling in this visible state 
for long years, pass away with this immaterial 
life only in the faintest degree developed. 
They have never known any strong and inspir- 
ing emotion of faith, and love, — never had any 
of the earnestness which, is life. Spiritually, 
they have been still-born. Others again die 
with the higher nature more or less vigorously 
active. It has been quickened by Truth. 
Death is not the same — it cannot be — to both 
these descriptions of persons. The latter pass 
away all alive. There is a life in them which 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 239 

not the most sudden or violent physical change 
can affect. And just as persons, who go to 
sleep at night with a great business to be at- 
tended to on the morrow on their minds, aw^ake 
at the right hour, so those who die with high 
aims at heart, have in themselves the means 
whereby they revive, and, reviving, re-eollect 
themselves. They come to themselves and 
find their place and understand what has be- 
fallen them the sooner and the more completely 
through this deeper life. Lazarus died with so 
strong a personal affection that, in some inscru- 
table way, it held him in sympathy with Jesus, 
the object of his reverential faith, and kept him 
still within the reach and influence of his 
beloved friend. 

Death, gentle and gradual as it usually is, 
nevertheless involves so great a physical change 
that, unless the life that is in a man is rendered 
vigorous through faith, such a great revolution 
in the mode of existence must confound and 
scatter his dreamy thinking so much as to 
obliterate from his memory, for a time at least, 
all the past. His past life, slight and superfi- 
cial, is as truly lost to him as his infancy w^as to 



240 THOUGHTS ON 

liis mature years. He has notliing to remember 
it by. Whereas one who dies with a dear 
object or friend at heart, passes through the 
great physical revolution, in which the whole 
physical organism is broken up, and is able to 
preserve the continuity of his conscious exist- 
ence uninterrupted. 

Jesus called to Lazarus vnth a loud voice. Why 
did he call thus loudly but that he expected 
Lazarus to hear him ? It was no make-believe. 
So strong was the affection of the dead man for 
the living, so vital was the union of the two, 
that the former, sunk though he was in the 
deep slumber, heard the call of his revered 
friend, and being still inscrutably present, 
having still some mysterious relation to his 
physical frame, which lay resting there, he re- 
animated that, and came forth. Lazarus was as 
dead as one could be, who was so full of life as 
he. As men differ, while living, in degrees of 
life, they differ also, when dead, in degrees of 
death. May it not be that, as the voice of 
Jesus was potent enough to recall Lazarus, 
many of the departed hereafter may be awa- 
kened from death through the sympathies bind- 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 241 

ing tliem to the loved ones who have gone 
before them into another condition of being ? 
It is pleasant to think it. 



It looks very much, — such is human nature, 
— as if Martha hastened on this memorable 
occasion to go and meet Jesus without letting 
Mary know that he was coming, in order to gain 
over her sister the little advantage of seeing 
him first. She must have known how glad 
Mary would have been to hear that he was 
coming at last, and to accompany her. But, 
from the jealousy she betrayed of Mary on a 
previous occasion,^ I cannot help suspecting 
that she felt that Mary was nearer to Jesus 
than she, and that if Mary were there, she her- 
self would be thrown in the background. So, 
naturally, without being perhaps distinctly 
conscious of the small feeling that alloyed her 
motive in going to meet him so promptly, she 
pleased herself with the idea that she would see 
him and speak with him first, and have him, 

> Luke X, 40. 
21 



242 THOUGHTS ON 

for a little while at least, all to herself. This 
state of mind was only too natural in one who, 
like Martha, had, upon one occasion, been so 
annoyed at seeing Mary seated, doing nothing, 
only listening to Jesus, — when she herself was 
so busy, providing for the entertainment of 
their guest, — that she actually complained to 
him of her sister, and met w^ith a mortifying 
reproof. 

If any little feeling, of the kind which I 
suppose, had place in Martha's heart, she was 
punished for it, as we always are for similar 
littlenesses, by being made to feel that it had 
betrayed her into a position in which she could 
not sustain herself. When she met Jesus, she 
was not equal to conversing with him. Every- 
thing he said embarrassed her. And she was 
forced to withdraw, and go and tell Mary that 
she was wanted. She was compelled virtually 
to confess that Mary would understand him 
better, and ought to be there. 

How glad Mary would have been to lose not 
a moment in going to meet him, we may infer 
from the fact that, as soon as Martha told her 
he was come, ''she rose up quickly^'' and went 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 243 

to liim. Her ea2:erness to see him was so 
marked that her haste is twice alhided to. 



If I have rightly interpreted the state of 
Martha's mind, then we may see also how 
natural it was that she shonld have called Mary 
secretly. She retired from the presence of 
Jesus with a feeling of self-dissatisfaction, — 
crestfallen. Perhaps her mind misgave her 
that she had not treated her sister generously. 
She had been made to feel painfully her in- 
ability to talk with Jesus. Instead of being 
comforted by him, she had only been con- 
founded. Consequently, there was no elation 
of spirit, no loud announcing of his approach. 
She merely whispers the tidings to her sister, 
and thus betrays the chagrin she meant to con- 
ceal. 

Possibly I scrutinize her too curiously. But 
I have no thought of disparaging Martha. The 
weakness, thus undesignedly disclosed in her, 
is so common and so natural that, in provoking 
a smile of sympathizing recognition, and this is 



244 THOUGHTS on 

all the effect it lias in derogation of her, it only 
renders the reality of her being the more vivid, 
and brings her near to ns as a sister. 

It may be that the only reason why Martha 
whispered to Mary of the coming of Jesus is to 
be found in the presence of the friends from 
the city who were seated with Mary, condoling 
with her, and who may not have been well 
affected toward Jesus. 



I HAVE said that Jesus wrought these won- 
derful effects, styled miracles, never for the 
sake of proving his power, or attesting his 
authority, but simply as he was prompted by 
an impulse of humanity. 

But the restoration of Lazarus, the most 
striking of these acts, has some appearance of 
being an exception to this remark. The ac- 
count tells us that, after Jesus had heard that 
Lazarus was sick, he forbore to go to Bethany, 
and that he did not go there, until he knew 
that his friend was dead, and that then he told 
his disciples he was glad for their sakes he was 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 245 

not there, in order that they might believe. 
And just before he called Lazarns forth, he 
gave expression to his thankfulness for the 
opportunity granted him to impress the minds 
of the people. 

Notwithstanding these circumstances, I find 
no inconsistency here with his usual course of 
proceeding. It certainly was not merely for 
the opportunity of raising a dead man to life 
that he thanked God. But what he was grateful 
for was, that, in the providence of Heaven, an 
occasion had arisen, when he could worthily 
use his singular power, not for the display of 
that power, but for a far higher end, — to mani- 
fest the life-giving power of faith. His pre- 
dominant motive in restoring Lazarus was per- 
sonal friendship for him and for his sisters. 
Out of love for them he recalled his friend to 
life. And what he thanked God for was, that 
circumstances were such, that one had fallen 
asleep in death between whom and himself 
those sympathies existed that enabled him to 
demonstrate the power of faith and love. Un- 
questionably he was glad of every opportunity 
of that sort. 

21-^ 



246 THOUGHTS ON 

It is striking to see how lie could perceive 
that what he did was fitted to cause the greatest 
excitement, and yet do it nevertheless with en- 
tire singleness of aim and an unconstrained 
dignity of manner. Never, to my eyes, does 
the form of Jesus so dilate with a majestic 
simplicity as at the grave of Lazarus. 



Individuals, devoted like Jesus to the great 
work of Eeform, are so apt to esteem others 
according to the interest which they take in 
what interests them, that the friendship of 
Jesus for the family at Bethany becomes a 
beautiful trait in his history. Lazarus, I sup- 
pose, had no apostolic qualifications. He w^as 
not fitted for any public labor, a true, silent, 
private man. Never man was devoted as Jesus 
was to his work, and yet he saw worth in those 
who took no part in it. He had friends, not 
partisans. 



Living as we do upon the surface, blinded as 
we are by the god of Mechanism, whom the 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 247 

age worships and the demonstrations of whose 
power, it must be confessed, are imposing 
enough to deceive the very elect and to destroy 
all faith in the spirit, we have come to have the 
feeblest apprehensions of the intrinsic and vic- 
torious energy of a strong conviction of mind ; 
or we should not find it so difficult as we do to 
understand the power which Jesus ascribed to 
faith when he declared that it delivers both the 
dead and the living from death. "We mistake 
opinions, fancies, dreams, for convictions of 
truth. Opinions, fancies, are the thinnest va- 
pors floating afar in the cold upper atmosphere 
of the soul. But Faith is an internal, crea- 
tive force. It melts. It crystallizes. It strings 
nerves, vitalizes blood. It draws the power of 
Almighty God down into human sinews and 
muscles. It electrifies and animates. It is the 
Divine Logos^ working forever through the 
human soul, re-creating the world. 



The commentators do not know how to ac- 
count for the omission by the first three Gos- 



248 THOUGHTS ON 

l^els of all mention of this greatest of tlie acts 
of Jesus, tlie resurrection of Lazarus. Neither 
do I. But what then ? John's account is 
stamped with the indelible impress of Truth. 
And that should suffice us. I cannot explain 
the omission. But I can readily believe there 
was a reason for it, without supposing the reason 
to be, that the story was not true. Its truth is 
impressed upon its face.^ 



The decisive marks of truth, evident in the 
narrative of the restoration of Lazarus, are 
briefly these : 

1. The perfect and obviously unintentional 
consistency with which the characters of Martha 
and Mary are preserved. 

2. The representation of Jesus in the novel 
act of raising a dead man to life, which he does, 

* The common supposition is^ that Lazarus being alive 
when the first three Gospels were written, they omitted to 
mention his resurrection^ ^^ lest the Jews, who had consulted 
to put him to death, should assassinate him. When St. John 
wrote, it is probable that he was dead, and therefore he gave 
a particular account of that resurrection." 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 249 

not only witliout loss of personal dignity, with- 
ont being belittled as he would be, were the 
account a fabrication, but in a way so becoming 
as to increase greatly our sense of his personal 
greatness. 

3. The direction of Jesus to the bystanders 
to go to the help of Lazarus, which unde- 
signedly discloses precisely that state of mind 
in them which the appearance of the dead man 
alive must have produced. 

4. The honesty of the narrator in intimating 
that upon some present the wonder made no 
impression. And, 

5. Lastly and chiefly, the intrinsic harmony 
of the great fact with the highest laws of our 
being. But the force of this, the strongest evi- 
dence of its truth, will be felt only by those 
who accept the representation of it which I 
have given. 



Great stress is always laid upon the title, 
^ Son of God,' in its application to Jesus, as 
significant of something peculiar, something 



250 THOUGHTS ON 

distinguisliing him from men as a being of a 
different and superior nature. But it is worthy 
of remark that, in the very first passage in the 
New Testament in which this title occurs, it is 
used as synonymous with 'Man.'^ "Ifthoubethe 
Son of Grodj command that these stones be made 
bread/' said the tempter. Jesus rephes, ''It is 
written, Man shall not live by bread alone ;" 
Son of God and man being employed as con- 
vertible terms. 

And verily man is the Son of God, not al- 
though but because he is man. Jesus, in whom 
a glorious development of humanity is wit- 
nessed, is, emphatically, on this account, be- 
cause so truly a man, the Son of God. 



Some things in the New Testament narra- 
tives, which appear to be miraculous, owe this 
appearance entirely to the translators. We have 
only to vary the phrase as we may without 
affecting the meaning of the original, and the 
miracle vanishes. Instances in point are af- 

' Matt, iv, 3. 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 251 

forded by those passages in which Jesus is 
represented as ' knowing' the thoughts of those 
around him.^ In every case in which we so 
read, the original sense is that Jesus saw or 
perceived what was passing in their thoughts, 
— saw it, where it was visible enough, in their 
faces. It could not have been difficult for any 
person of ordinary penetration, certainly not 
for one so keen-sighted as Jesus, to divine the 
thoughts of the Scribes and Pharisees, when he 
performed some work that drew forth the ac- 
clamations of the people. Who that had eyes 
could fail to see their jealousy and their rage, 
through the affected looks of pious horror 
which they exchanged when he healed the sick 
on the Sabbath! It shows a very imperfect 
sense of the greatness of Jesus to suppose that 
he never did or said the most common things 
without special and supernatural aid. 



Other things, again, are represented by the 
original writers as miraculous which were not 

* Matt, xii, 25 ; ix, 4 ; Luke vi, 8 ; xi, 17. 



252 TIIOUGIITS ON 

so ; which is as it should be. For what could 
be more truly in keeping with the whole his- 
tory than that, when so many really extraordi- 
nary events were taking place, things ordinary 
should be mistaken and exaggerated. The 
account of the birth of Jesus, for instance, is 
just such a fable as was to have been expected, 
when it is remembered how wonderful his life 
was. The more extravagant the stories told of 
his birth, only the stronger is the presumption 
that he could have been no common person, 
for whose existence such an account was alone 
thought worthy. 

A very striking example of the disposition to 
magnify the ordinary into the extraordinary, a 
diposition which the exciting experience of the 
disciples was powerfully fitted to produce, is the 
story of the transfiguration of the person of 
Jesus, w^hich arose, as I have endeavored else- 
where to show, out of a vivid dream of Peter's.' 

^ I beg leave to refer the reader again to a former volume, 
' Jesus and his Biographers J To the explanation there given 
I have nothing to add, except to suggest the great proba- 
bility that the dream of Peter was caused by thunder and 
lightning accompanying the cloud, which, it is related, came 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 2/33 

It is curious to observe liow satisfactorily all the 
circumstances mentioned in the narratives of 
this incident, are explained, — how they all fall 
into place upon this supposition. This mode 

up on tliat occasion. We know that dreams, quite long and 
circumstantial, oftentimes occupy an inappreciable space of 
time. Electricity is only a very inadequate symbol of the 
rapidity of thought under certain circumstances. Individuals, 
who have been suddenly thrown into situations of extreme 
danger, report nothing as more remarkable in such an expe- 
rience than the instantaneousness with which a multitude of 
thoughts pass with great distinctness before the mind. The 
same thing is often observable in dreams. A noise that 
awakens us produces often a vivid dream. A clap of thunder 
accounts for the story of the transfiguration in a way per- 
fectly natural. The incidents of that event, as they are told, 
are all coincident. ^^ A singular fact has often been observed 
in dreams which are excited by a noise ; namely, that the 
same sound awakens the person and produces a dream which 
appears to him to occupy a considerable time. The follow- 
ing example of this has been related to me. A gentleman 
dreamed that he had been enlisted as a soldier, joined his 
regiment, deserted, was apprehended, carried back, tried, con- 
demned to be shot, and at last led out for execution. After 
all the usual preparations, a gun was fired, he awoke with the 
report, and found that a noise in an adjoining room had both 
produced the dream and awaked him.'' — [Inc[uirics concern- 
inrj the T iitcJUcJnal Powers^ (f*c., hy J, Ahcrcromhie^ M.J).) 

22 



254 THOUGHTS ON 

of understanding the story of tlie transfigura- 
tioHj establishes much more important things 
than it explains away. It requires not only the 
actual existence of the actors in the scene, and 
their presence on the spot, but also that exciting 
events must have previously taken place, in 
order to induce the state of mind which dis- 
posed Peter to dream such a dream, and his 
fellow disciples instantly to fall in with his im- 
pression that it was all real. 

It is a groundless fear that the discovery of 
mistakes in these histories, tends to undermine 
the credibility of the whole. I cannot perceive 
the reasonableness of any such inferences; espe- 
cially when it so plainly appears that the errors 
discovered could not possibly have had an 
existence, if the history were not substantially 
true. They are the shadows caused by the 
light, and could not possibly have existed with- 
out it. 



*^^Do the duty which lies nearest to thee, and 
a new light w^ill rise for thee upon the doing of 
all things whatsoever." ''Doubt can be re- 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 255 

lieved only by action." What are these sayings 
of modern wisdom, but different versions of the 
thought of Jesus : ' If any man will do His will, 
he will know of my teaching, w^hether I am 
true or false. '^ We must act in order to know. 

This great principle Jesus did not content 
himself with asserting only once. What was 
that memorable declaration to Pilate, ''Every 
one who is of the truth, heareth my voice, "^ but 
the same saying, namely, that the true man 
distinguishes the Truth, and only the true 
man? Again, when the people murmured at 
his words, he virtually said to them, ' It is of 
no use ; you cannot understand me unless you 
listen in the same spirit in w^hich I speak ;'^ or 
that other saying: ^Wisdom is justified of her 
children, '"^ — what does it mean but that only the 
wise perceive wisdom in its different manifesta- 
tions, only the true understand Truth ? 

It is this most singular clearness of vision 
with which he saw that, let truth be stated 
with the utmost plainness, only the doer can be 
the knower, only the honest can distinguish the 

' John vii, 17. 2 John xviii, 37. 

3 John vi, 43, 44. ^ l^^i-^. y^i^ 35. 



256 THOUGHTS ON 

truth, that creates in me a sense of his profound 
wisdom. Truly was it said of him that he 
understood human nature, that he knew men.^ 

It was his distinct perception of the fact that 
men come to know the truth only by being it, 
that rendered him insensible to every tempta- 
tion to intolerance. He knew that he was in 
the right, and that those who opposed him were 
in the wrong, yet no teacher that the world has 
ever had ever paid such implicit deference to 
the reason and conscience of mankind. And 
he was pre-eminent in this respect, because he 
read it in the nature of man, that truth can no 
more be forced upon minds averse to it than a 
plant can be drawn from the seed by mechanical 
means. Accordingly he paid uniform respect 
to man's native sense of the true and the right. 
He invariably addressed himself to that tribunal, 
and when, corrupted by passion or self-interest, 
it rejected his appeal, he resorted to no other 
means of producing conviction. He used 
neither bribe nor threat, nor any force but the 
force of truth. On that alone he relied. 

This is one of the traits in him which im- 

' John ii, 24, 25. 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 257 

press me witli the idea that he was a man of 
wonderful illumination of mind, immeasurably 
too enlightened to have taught the narrow 
errors which Mr. Parker ascribes to him. 
Through the brief and imperfect reports of his 
sayings, instead of discerning traces of political 
designs, I get glimpses of a mind singularly 
large and elevated. 



It is sometimes asked, with a childish igno- 
rance of human nature, why, if he possessed 
the extraordinary power attributed to him, he 
did not descend from the Cross in answer to the 
taunts of his enemies, and so silence and con- 
vince them. To say nothing of the effect which 
such a proceeding would have had in destroy- 
ing the illustration which his death gives of a 
self-sacrificing devotion to Truth, what reason is 
there to suppose that those who, rather than 
believe in him, had ascribed the instantaneous 
cures which he had wrought to the agency of 
evil spirits, would have hesitated to ascribe his 
descent from the Cross, had such descent taken 



258 THOUGHTS ON 

place, to the same bad agency ? What evidence 
is there, that Truth may present, so strong that 
depraved minds will not pervert it? Do we 
not daily see truths, which voices from heaven 
could not render more plain, jBatly rejected by 
those who have some interest to serve, some 
passion to gratify by rejecting them? Why, 
the great sun in heaven is hidden from a man 
when his little pride is in the way. When un- 
belief has become chronic, a second nature, you 
must regenerate the individual before you can 
expect any argument to convince, or any evi- 
dence to be appreciated. 

On the other hand, where there is the least 
ingenuousness. Truth is received into the mind 
upon the slightest hint. It cannot touch the 
hem of her garment without feeling it through 
and through. The sense of truth, when once 
excited into action, grows steadily more and 
more keen. This is plainly seen in the per- 
sonal friends of Jesus. Uneducated, and par- 
taking largely, as men of their class must have 
done, in the prejudices of their time and coun- 
try, they nevertheless had a childlike openness 
of disposition that rendered them susceptible of 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 259 

tlie Truth speaking from tlie lips and beaming 
from the looks of Jesus. They were of that 
temper for which Truth has a strong affinity. 
They were growing constantly in the knowledge 
of it, although they never wholly outgrew their 
Jewish ideas. 

When has our frail human nature ever been 
so highly honored as it was by the confidence 
which Jesus reposed in it? One of the loftiest 
traits of his character is the faith, with which, 
always, even in the darkest hour, he committed 
himself to all good men and true, — to whatever 
of goodness and truth there was in the world. 
He believed in the existence of goodness and 
truth, although he had so little reason. His 
virtual appeal to '' every one that is of the 
truth,'' when he stood before the Eoman Go- 
vernor, and when there was not a soul in all 
the crowd true/ind courageous enough to speak 
a word in his behalf, strikes me as hardly less 
than sublime. 



In order fully to appreciate the moral courage 
of Jesus, just think, (and we need not go far for 



260 THOUGHTS ON 

aid to our tlioiiglits,) wliat a reign of terror is 
alwaj^s established by Falsehood and AVrong, 
when they have once become established by 
custom and law. Then the perversion of the 
public and private conscience is extreme. The 
clear-sighted become stone-blind to truths 
plainer than the sun ; and the boldest tremble 
at the least thought of resistance. It was 
against such a terrible despotism that the 
young Man of Nazareth stood forth fearlessly 
and alone. 'Not for a moment was it doubtful 
what his position was in relation to the mon- 
strous abuses of his time. Against him, the 
respectability, learning, wealth, and religion of 
his country were arrayed. He kept no terms 
with them. He laid bare the corruption of the 
popular religious character of the day in burn- 
ing words, indifferent to the deadly hatred 
which he excited in the ruling class, and as 
careless of their machinations as of the dust on 
which he trod. 



There is hardly any incident in his history 
that has occasioned more embarrassment than 
the carsing of the barren jig -tree. 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 261 

"Were it a pure fiction, it is a matter of won- 
der that the author or authors of the fable, 
while they were about it, did not represent 
Jesus as causing figs instantly to appear on the 
tree. 

If, as I have endeavored to show, Jesus pro- 
duced the wonderful eflects ascribed to him by 
means of a peculiar gift that w^as native to him, 
inseparable from his nature, then it follows that 
he could not possibly give expression to this 
rare vital energy, without its having its neces- 
sary efiect. If, in an unguarded moment, he 
gave utterance to a sudden volition, the thing 
that he willed had to take place. The effect 
had to follow the cause. Thus when, as he was 
travelling, he became hungry, and, seeing a 
fig-tree in the distance and upon reaching it, 
finding no fruit thereon, was so disappointed as 
to vent his vexation in an imprecation on the 
tree, the tree was, as a natural and inevitable 
consequence, just as certain to be destroyed as 
by another man's axe when struck by it. Such 
w^as the essential energy of his will. It could 
not be expressed without producing its effect. 
It was as if the tree had received a blow, or had 



262 THOUGHTS on 

been struck by lightning. It must needs wither 
away. 

The incident being admitted as a fact, such 
is the explanation of it which is, not merely 
suggested, but necessitated by the view which 
I have given of the so-called miracles of Jesus. 

The two accounts of this occurrence vary 
very considerably. Their variations, however, 
so far from being any evidence that the story 
is not true, furnish a presumption to the con- 
trary. Fables, intended to be received as facts, 
are usually told pretty much in only one way. 
They cannot afford to bear the weight of con- 
tradictions and discrepancies. 

Matthew relates that when Jesus found no 
fruit on the tree he exclaimed: "Let no fruit 
grow on thee henceforth forever!" Mark says 
that Jesus said, "l^o man shall eat fruit of thee 
hereafter forever !" Matthew gives us to under- 
stand that the fig-tree withered away instantly. 
Mark's account is, that it was not until the 
next day that the disciples of Jesus saw that it 
" was dried up from the root."^ 

' Matt, xxi; 19; 20 5 Mark xi, 12-14, 20, 21. 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 2G3 

Whichever of these exclamations we accept 
as the words of Jesus, we should hardly infer 
from them that he expressed himself passion- 
ately. Especially, accustomed as we are to 
read the New Testament with no accompanying 
exercise of the imagination, we should be slow 
to call his language on this occasion, a curse. 
Yet so it sounded, and was spoken of by those 
who heard him. "Master," said Peter to him, 
" behold ! the fig-tree that thou cursedst is 
withered away." As a curse then, prompted 
at the moment by disappointed hunger, the 
language, in which he gave utterance to his 
vexation, could not have been spoken with 
calmness. It is neither natural nor in accord- 
ance with his character, that he should have 
cursed the tree in cold blood. 

There was no harm done, since the tree was 
barren, as appeared from the fact that there was 
no unripe fruit on it. The season of figs had 
not come. If they had been in season then, it 
would have been possible that the tree had 
borne fruit, but that it had all been gathered. 

The good that resulted from the act was in- 
direct, and at the moment, I suppose, not in- 



264 THOUGHTS ON 

tended. It consisted in the striking instance it 
afforded of tlie power of faith. Sucli was the 
use Jesus made of the incident. He taught, 
and the fate of the tree reiterated the lesson, 
that a man can do whatever he believes that he 
can do. An unquestionable truth. Whatever 
he believes. But then it must be belief, not 
fancy, not opinion, not delusion. Faith cannot 
exist without a foundation. A man can do 
whatever he believes that he can do. True, 
because, in the nature of things, a man cannot, 
properly speaking, believe in his ability to do a 
thing unless he possesses the ability. The 
power, dwelling in us and making itself known 
to us through our consciousness, involuntarily 
as it were and unconsciously creates in us the 
faith essential to its development. 

"Whether Jesus knew, or took into considera- 
tion beforehand, what would be the effect of 
the curse which he pronounced upon the tree, 
or whether the imprecation was only the ejacu- 
lation of his disappointment at finding no fruit, 
I cannot tell. I think the latter was the case ; 
he spoke hastily. And if it were so, then this 
incident gives us a vivid impression of the for- 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 2b5 

bearance which he habitually exercised in the 
use of his singular power. If weakness is 
shown here, so is strength, and far more im- 
pressively. It is grand to think that, although 
there was a power in him that could uproot 
mountains, he was yet so exalted above every 
thought of using it for his pride or passion, 
that only once, when he was vexed at finding 
no fruit on a fig-tree, was he betrayed into a 
hasty and passionate exertion of his mighty 
will. He becomes even more wonderful for his 
forgetfulness of his great power than for his 
exercise of it. 

This explanation of the withering of the fig- 
tree throws light upon other passages which 
relate how Jesus wrought upon inanimate mat- 
ter. Let it be borne in mind that in the opi- 
nion of some of the wisest philosophers, matter, 
in the last analysis, will be found reducible to 
points of force. But force is the attribute or 
distinctive property of mind, not of matter as 
popularly defined. There is then the relation 
of one and the same nature between matter 
and mind. Through this occult relation the 

2?) 



268 THOUGHTS ON 

will of Jesus operated to produce the effects 
which he wrought on inanimate objects. 



Certain very scrupulous persons once in- 
quired of Jesus why his disciples disregarded 
the traditions of the elders by omitting to wash 
their hands before eating. 

He answered this question by asking another. 
And the question he asked shows as strikingly 
as anything else in his history how far beyond, 
not only his day but ours, his religious idea 
was. ''Why do ye also^'' he demanded, ''trans- 
gress the commandment of Gfod by your tradition ? 
For Grod commanded^ saying^ Honor thy father 
and mother : andj He that curseth father or mo- 
ther, let him die the death. But ye say, Whoso- 
ever shall say to his father or his mother^ It is a 
gift by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me^ 
and honor not his father or his mother, he shall be 
free* Thus have ye made the commandment of 
Grod of none effect by your tradition.'' 

It appears that the veneration of the Jews 
for their temple and its ceremonies w^as so ex- 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 267 

cessive that their leading men considered the 
duty to that more important than the duty of 
children to their aged parents ; and they taught 
accordingly. A monstrous perversion. We can 
hardly suppose it possible. The savage tribes, 
among whom children are authorized to destroy 
their parents when old age threatens them, are 
not so depraved. For their motive is to relieve 
the aged from sufferings, for which, in their 
rude way of life, they can provide no other alle- 
viation. 

Gross and almost incredible as this perver- 
sion of feeling among the Jews appears, I 
nevertheless think it indicates no ordinary 
strength of mind in Jesus that he saw through 
it and exposed its falsehood. For, profess as 
we may to look upon those ancient Jews with 
contempt for their blindness, the very same 
monstrous corruption of feeling is manifested 
now in full force and in the most enlightened 
communities; there is the same tenderness for 
artificial forms, the same disposition to uphold 
them at the cost of the most sacred duties. At 
this hour, so excessive is the reverence of the 
people of this country for the edifice of their 



268 THouGnTS on 

Civil Union, (no temple of Religion,) that, for 
the sake of it, laws are passed absolving us 
from the obligations of common humanity ! 
As distinctly as God, speaking by the voice of 
Nature, hath commanded us to honor our pa- 
rents, so also hath he said, without any qualify- 
ing clause : "• Do to others as ye would have 
them do to you.'' ^'Love thy neighbor as thy- 
self/' ''Let the oppressed go free." But this 
nation says, 'Whosoever shall say to his bro- 
ther-man or sister-woman : It is a gift, conse- 
crated to the maintenance of the Union and 
Constitution, by whatsoever thou maj^st be pro- 
fited by me, he shall be free, free from the 
obligation to deal justly with his fellow-men, 
free to buy and sell and hunt them at his plea- 
sure.' Thus are the sacred dictates of ISTature, 
the holy commandments of the great God, 
made of none effect by our political traditions, 
the enactments of men being maintained by 
the educated and the religious as the highest 
law. The moral sense of the Man of Nazareth 
was manifestly in advance, not only of his own 
day, but of our blazing nineteenth century 
noontide. 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 269 

Numbers there are, whose moral perceptions, 
from one cause or another, are so confused 
that they are at a loss to decide to which they 
owe their allegiance, the commandments of 
God written in the heart, or the political tradi- 
tions of the fathers, inscribed by frail hands on 
perishable parchment and paper. If they, who 
are thus unable to decide between the two, 
were to pray for a revelation from heaven to 
enlighten them, I can imagine no lesson which 
they could receive or desire more directly to 
the purpose than this most pertinent incident 
in the Life of Jesus. 



I HAVE said that the closing hours of this 
wonderful Life are the only portion of it, of 
which we have in the Gospels a history that 
approaches to a regular narrative. And the 
reason of it is the extraordinary personal great- 
ness by which those closing hours are glorified. 
At every step the person of Jesus glows with 
some new manifestation of moral beauty more 

23^ 



270 THOUGHTS ON 

resplendent than tlie last, and yet all is as 
natural and unforced as tlie morning light. 

If his simple history had not been so dis- 
torted by superstition, and if, in the reading of 
the N^ew Testament, the imaginative faculty, 
which is in us all, were not entirely paralyzed, 
if it were excited into the slightest activity, it 
would be scarcely possible to read the last few 
pages of his life aloud. The voice would break 
into sobs of unutterable admiration and pity. 
IsTo triumphal procession, glancing at every step 
with the spoils of kings and with the banners 
of victory, no coronation pomp, no august reli- 
gious ceremonial, no jubilant Te Deum, no 
wailing Miserere could symbolize the grandeur 
and the pathos of that series of events, which, 
beginning in the garden of Gethsemane, ter- 
minates in that other garden near the hill of 
the Crucifixion. 



Behold him emerging from the deep shadows 
of the trees. The torches of the armed band, 
come to arrest him, flash upon his erect form 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 271 

and liis calm pale countenance, as, suddenly 
advancing towards them, he asks whom they 
are seeking. And when, upon their saying, 
Jesus of Nazareth, he replies, ^I am he,' who 
wonders as he reads that, at that unlooked-for 
apparition, at the sound of that commanding 
voice, which no fear made tremulous, the armed 
men were brought to so sudden a halt, and 
thrown into such confusion, that some of them, 
borne backward, were thrown down. Coming 
to arrest a man rumored to possess strange 
powers, and coming in the night, they were 
doubtless huddled very close together; and 
were naturally enough seized with a temporary 
panic, when the person whom they had come 
out to apprehend with arms and in numbers, 
thus suddenly presented himself before them. 



And then observe how instant is his conside- 
ration for his disciples. "If you want me, let 
these go their way." And is there not a natural 
tone of contempt, almost of bitterness, in the 
language which he addresses to his captors? 



272 THOUGHTS ON 

"Do yon come out against me witli swords and 
clubs as against a thief? In the daytime when 
I was in the Temple, within your reach, you 
did not dare to touch me. You have chosen 
your fitting time, the hour of darkness."^ Such 
appears to be the purport of his words. It is 
right that he should have thus evinced a sense 
of the indignity with which he was treated. 



Follow him when he is led bound into the 
presence of the High Priest, and there again 
witness the divine temper of this wonderful 
man. "With the grossest injustice that digni- 
tary would fain have made Jesus his own 
accuser. But to the questions which the High 
Priest put to him, Jesus replied : ' I have 
spoken openly before the world. I have always 
taught in the synagogue and the temple, whither 
the Jews all resort, and in secret I have said 
nothing. Why do you inquire of me ? Ask 
those who have heard me. They know what I 

' Luke xxii; 52, 53. 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 273 

have said.' This language of simple truth, so 
directly to the purpose, unanswerable, and 
fitted to make the High Priest look very fool- 
ish, some ignorant partisan of his, standing by, 
knew no better than to understand as an insult 
to his master, and to resent by striking Jesus 
with the palm of his hand, in plain words, by 
slapping him in the face, exclaiming at the 
same time, ^Is that the way you answer the 
High Priest?'^ I see the blood, stirred by the 
blow, mantling the cheek. I see those clear 
eyes turned full upon the man, while to this 
brutal treatment are returned the immortal 
words, ^'If I have spoken falsely, declare it; if 
truly, why do you strike me ?" 



When Jesus is arraigned before the Eoman 
Procurator, the contrast is so striking between 
the restless, boastful, and cowardly judge and 
the self-possession of the prisoner, that the rela- 
tion is reversed, and it is the judge who is con- 

' John xviii; 22. 



274 THOUGHTS on 

demned and the prisoner who passes sentence. 
"We should infer from the opposite characters of 
the two that the looks, the demeanor of Jesus, 
overawed the weak mind of Pilate, even if the 
history did not intimate as much. I gather 
from the account that the Governor was under 
a species of fascination. Had the prisoner 
been any ordinary individual, Pilate would 
have dispatched the case very soon, with very 
little compunction. But he evidently did not 
know what to make of Jesus. The dignified 
silence he maintained was a mystery to the 
magistrate, who seems to have been impelled, 
hardly knowing why, to make repeated efibrts 
to save him from the fate to which the priests 
were clamoring to consign him. 

'^Are you a king then?" asks Pilate. ''Yes," 
he replies, ''I am a king." His whole air at- 
tests his inborn royalty. Had the blood of a 
long line of kingly ancestry filled his veins, he 
could not have borne himself more regally. 
"For this end was I born, and for this cause 
came I into the world to be a witness of the 
truth, and every true man listens to my voice." 
A king indeed, reigning over all true men, 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 275 

acknowledged as a sovereign by all whom 
Truth makes free, wielding a sceptre never to 
be broken. He stood there utterly forsaken by 
every earthly friend ; but he could not be un- 
kinged. Unkinged ! It was his coronation day. 
His own blood was the oil of consecration, and 
a vile cross was the throne prepared for him, 
from which he was to rule the ages. The con- 
sciousness of being then and there a martyr to 
the Truth, to reign forever by divine right in 
every true soul, was the token of his preroga- 
tive, more significant than any crown of gold. 
Alone, misunderstood, surrounded by savage 
men, thirsting for his life, amidst that horrid 
din and with that grim death before him, not 
for an instant does he lose his generous faith in 
good men and true. He still leans with perfect 
dignity upon all loyal hearts. This is kingly. 



To observe how true it is, as I have said, that 
at every step of the way from the Garden to 
Golgotha, in every attitude of Jesus, whether 
standing arraigned as a criminal or staggering 



276 THOUGHTS ON 

under the weight of the cross, or hanging on 
that horrid instrument of death, a new illumi- 
nation of truth and greatness transfigures his 
person, we have only to recall his words to the 
women who followed him weeping : " Daughters 
of Jerusalem^ iveep not for me^ lueep for yourselves 
and your children^'" and that prayer of forgive- 
ness which floats forever on the atmosphere of 
the world like the music of an ascending angel: 
"Father ! forgive them! they know not what they 
are doing!'' I believe this ejaculation burst 
from his agonized lips just as they were nailing 
him to the Cross, and that it had reference to 
the ignorant brutal men who were inflicting 
upon him that torture. 



On one occasion, as we read, he forgot his 
mother. It was when, excited and shocked by 
the incorrigible perversity of certain Pharisees 
who had charged him with being in league 
with evil spirits, he was wholly absorbed in 
what he was saying, as the strength of his lan- 
guage shows, and some one most impertinently 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 277 

interrupted him, telling him that his mother 
was there wanting to speak to him. For a 
moment he speaks as if he had forgotten the 
most sacred of all human relations, as if his 
mother were a stranger to him. His forgetful- 
ness of his mother on this occasion was, how- 
ever, in the very spirit of his own declaration, 
''Whosoever loveth father or mother more than me^ 
is not worthy of me.'' These words which he 
addressed to his disciples, Truth addressed to 
him. 

But although his ardent devotion to the 
truth made him momentarily forgetful of his 
mother, no extremity of physical torture could 
have the same effect. After he was hung upon 
the Cross, in the gasping agony of that posi- 
tion, he caught sight of his mother, standing 
near with his dearest friend, and when life is 
rapidly ebbing away, and he is only able to 
utter an ejaculation at intervals, in brief, broken 
words he commends her to the care of his 
friend: "Woman! lot thy son!'' he called to 
her, and to John, '' Lo ! thy mother !" Though 
able, chiefly from the torture, but in part per- 
haps from filial emotion, only to articulate a 

24 



278 THOUGHTS ON 

word or two at a time, he was understood, and 
John ever afterwards cherished Mary as his 
mother. "When Jesus was most human, then 
was he most divine. 



Reading the N"ew Testament, as we are all 
in the habit of doing, mechanically, with so 
little accompanying aid of the imagination, we 
seldom represent to ourselves what must have 
been the power of the personal presence of 
Jesus, of his voice, of the expression of his 
face, of his eye. As ^ the mind shows itself 
through the body, he must have been pre- 
eminent in the highest kind of beauty, the 
beauty that is found not in the visible features, 
but which, indefinable, shines through these 
with infinite variety and with a power penetra- 
ting to the soul whence it comes. His inner 
being was all aflame with Truth and Love. 
These beamed through his eyes and played 
through every lineament of his countenance, 
and poured their thrilling music through the 
intonations of his voice, and gave unconscious 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 279 

grace and dignity to his whole bearing. I can 
readily understand how he must have taken the 
hearts of all ingenuous persons who saw and 
heard him. Looks and tones expressive of 
sincerity have a captivation which not even the 
hardest can resist. 

Does the wish sometimes rise within me that 
I could have seen that face which expressed 
the very love of God, that I could have heard 
that voice, every tone of which must have been 
full of a thrilling sensibility? And yet had I 
lived in those days, what could have saved me 
from those prejudices which blinded so many 
to the fascination of his presence, and made 
them deaf to the music of that voice? Rather 
let me pray for the pure heart and the single 
eye that will enable me to discern the same 
beauty of God in the features of living men, 
and to catch tones of the same ravishing sweet- 
ness of Heaven, in voices now speaking in the 
world. 



I WONDER how often readers of the ^ew 
Testament represent to themselves with any 



280 THOUGHTS ON 

distinctness the great difference between the 
estimation in which Jesus is held now and the 
way in which he was looked upon when he 
was livins: and travellino; about in Galilee and 
Judea. iSTow his name is so sacred that, like 
the name of the Highest, it is accounted pro- 
fane to utter it with levity; so profound is the 
universal sense of the sanctity of the Man of 
K'azareth. But then, when he was living, no 
religious associations had gathered around the 
new and, to all but Jewish ears, barbarous 
name of Jesus. Spoken of by the respectable 
and pious as a blasphemous person, fond of 
wine, an associate of the worst characters, an 
unprincipled demagogife aiming to stir up the 
people to treason, he represented the very re- 
verse of all that is worthy and religious. To 
numbers of good people, good as the world 
went, he was an object of aversion and horror. 
To have said then that he was a pious man, 
would have been considered as convicting one- 
self of impiety. Piety ! that was the attribute 
of the good orthodox people of those days, the 
Pharisees. To the many, Jesus was worse then 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 281 

than an Abolitionist is now in the eyes of 
Southern planters. 



The name of Christ has now everywhere 
become such a mere word, that no slight effort 
is required to understand what a power it was 
when it was a new name, full of significance, 
standing for ideas that stirred up the very deeps 
of the soul. Whoever, in the days of the Apos- 
tles, spoke that name aloud, with respect, in- 
stantly aroused and concentrated on himself 
the fiercest hatred. It turned natural affection 
into bitterness. And therefore it was that 
Jesus, whose experience enabled him to foresee 
that state of things, told his friends that they 
must be prepared to suffer to the uttermost on 
account of his name. 

But there is another use of his name which 
is not so readily understood. He bade his dis- 
ciples pray in his name^ assuring them that 
whatever they should ask m his name they 
would receive. 

It has been inferred from this language that 

24- 



232 THOUGHTS ON 

lie represented himself as so powerful that what 
the Eternal Father would not give out of his 
own goodness. He would give out of considera- 
tion for Christ, that his name would be an in- 
dorsement of prayer insuring its acceptance. 
There is not the slightest necessity of drawing 
any such inferences from the passages referred 
to. 

While the mere sound of his name excited 
his enemies to madness and bloodshed, to his 
friends it was a sound all alive with the most 
inspiring ideas. It suggested the best thoughts. 
It created the profoundest emotions. His name 
thus became a spirit. It was identical with all 
the truth and power which Jesus himself repre- 
sented. So that, when he told his friends they 
would receive whatever they should ask in his 
namcy so far from intending to represent him- 
self as so powerful that, no matter what they 
prayed for, they would receive it if they only 
connected his name with the prayer, he evi- 
dently limits the promise to such things only as 
should be ashed for in that spirit which his name 
then expressed and inspired. 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 283 



It is worthy of note that, while it is expressly 
stated in the gospel of John that the things 
contained therein were written to prove Jesus 
to be the Messiah/ no allusion is made in this 
Gospel to that most emphatic assertion of his 
claim to the title, which the other Gospels tell 
us he made to the High Priest.^ 

The Gospels are all obscure and unsatisfac- 
tory in regard to the Messiahship of Jesus. He 
himself continually spoke of the Christ in the 
third person. He did not say, the Christ has 
come ; but the burthen of his teaching was, the 
kingdom is coming. ''When the Son of Man 
Cometh," he asked on one occasion, ''will he 
find faith on the earth?'' i. e., 'When the Mes- 
siah comes, will he find people prepared to 
believe in him V At the same time he calls 
himself the Son of Man. But this was not a 
title belonging exclusively to the Messiah. 
Only on two or three occasions is he recorded 

' John XX, 31. 

2 Matt, xxvi, 64 ; Mark xiv, 62 ; Luke xxii, 70. 



284 THOUGHTS on 

to have avowed himself to be the person whom 
his countrymen were expecting/ 

Some interesting questions arise. On what 
grounds was the Jewish expectation of a Mes- 
siah based ? Was it prompted by a certain un- 
erring instinct, looking always for the highest 
good to come through man, the highest created 
being that we know ? The ancient prophecies, 
which were believed to justify this expectation, 
are very obscure and indefinite, and have their 
origin, so far as they are prophecies at all, in 
the same instinct. The existence, however, of 

^ While he is represented in one passage by Matthew (ch. 
vii; 22, 23) as speaking in the character of the Messiah^ and 
saying, " Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have 
we not prophesied in thy name," &c. Luke, in his account 
of what appears to be the same language (ch. xiii, 25-28), 
represents him as speaking in the third person : ^^ When once 
the master of the house is risen up and hath shut to the door, 
and ye begin to stand without and to knock at the door say- 
ing. Lord, Lord, open unto us j and lie shall answer and say 
unto you," &c. As the writers of the Gospels held him to be 
the Messiah, it is easier to see how, when he spoke in the 
third person, he should be reported as speaking in the first 
than the reverse. 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 285 

this expectation, and beyond the borders of 
Judea, is, I believe, unquestioned. 

Did this hope, in the hidden nature of things, 
work to its own fulfilment? And was the 
physical organization, the whole nature of the 
Man of Nazareth, fashioned and informed by 
this great hope which, as the central life of the 
nation, poured its inspiration into the lowliest 
private heart, — into the soul of Mary ? "Who 
can tell the influence which great ideas, burn- 
ing in the national heart, have upon the phy- 
sical constitution of individuals ? 

If Jesus claimed to be the Messiah, born to 
fulfil the great public hope of the East, how 
came he to be assured of his claims ? By what 
means did he know himself to be the Christ? 
Not by external and supernatural displays of 
power, which at the best are uncertain, was 
truth borne into the mind of Jesus. It was 
within, through his own clear and sure con- 
sciousness, that the Highest was manifested to 
him. And it could only have been in this way 
that he knew himself to be qualified, by the 
truth which he possessed, to satisfy the hope 
not of liis country alone but of the whole world. 



286 THOUGHTS ON 

Was it so ? "Was the Truth loved by him so 
devotedly, had he such experience of its power, 
that he could not help knowing it as the com- 
plement of humanity, making that whole ? 

Or, may it be that Jesus did not claim to be 
the Messiah in any Jewish sense of the word, 
but that the passages, in which he is reported 
as directly or indirectly assuming that office, 
have taken their form and hue from the writers, 
who, being full of their Jewish ideas, were very 
liable to misunderstand his allusions to the 
heavenly kingdom ? 

That he far transcended the Jewish idea, that 
he was more than their Messiah, is very clear. 
"Whether clothed in any official dignity or not, 
he is Heaven's best gift to us all, the brightest 
revelation that we know of the Highest. 



I HAVE said that Lazarus was recalled to life 
by means of the strong life there was in him 
when he died. And that life was the inspira- 
tion of the revering affection which he cherished 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 287 

for Jesus. I believe that Jesus himself came to 
life again after his crucifixion, by similar 
means. 

That he was alive, and that he was seen and 
spoken with by Mary on the morning of the 
first day of the week, I hold to be established 
as a fact by the strongest possible evidence. I 
have endeavored to exhibit this evidence in 
detail elsewhere.^ I shall not repeat it here, 
although I can hardly refrain, — the story of the 
resurrection of Jesus, as I gather it from the 
Four Gospels, is so wondrously true to nature. 
I content myself with saying in this place that 
it is wholly out of my power to conceive or 
desire more satisfactory proof that Jesus was 
alive and present on that memorable morning, 
than that which is woven into the whole fabric 
of the narratives of the event. I believe in the 
fact because the evidence compels me to believe 
it. I think an undue importance has been 
given to the fact. It is represented as the corner- 
stone of all faith in a life after death, and as 
having occurred with the express design of 

^ Jesus and his Biographers, and A History of Jesus. 



288 THOUGHTS on 

confirmino; that faith. I cannot so reo-ard it. 
Received as a fact, it certainly shows the supe- 
riority of the spirit over the flesh. But what 
was its special purpose I do not undertake to 
affirm. 

As far as I am able to see, Jesus returned to 
life, moved bj^ affection for his personal friends, 
to reassure them. His death confounded and 
crushed them. And had he not re-appeared, I 
think they would have gone back to Galilee, 
and resumed their old occupations. His re- 
appearance put a new aspect upon the whole 
thing in their eyes. They were impelled per- 
force to assert the fact of his resurrection, and 
in testifying to that, they came, almost insen- 
sibly, to be witnesses before the whole world to 
his life and teachings. My belief is, that, 
through the singular power with which he was 
naturally endowed, he was inspired with the 
faith that he could return to life again after 
death, if he so willed. He willed it therefore. 
He had the purpose before his death to return 
after that event. He died with that purpose at 
heart. And as one goes to sleep resolved to 
awake at a certain hour, and at the proposed 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 289 

hour does actually awake, so Jesus breathed his 
last with a like purpose. And it was this pur- 
pose, living in the hidden strength of his affec- 
tion, that awoke him. Do I mean to say then, 
that I believe him to have been actually dead 
upon the Cross ? Certainly. He was as truly 
dead as one could be who possessed in unprece- 
dented fulness that interior life, which death, a 
mere physical event, cannot destroy, and which 
was so strong in him that it conquered death 
and repaired the physical derangement which 
death caused, and enabled him to awake as 
from deep sleep. 

This representation of the way in which 
Jesus was restored to life will, I suppose, be 
considered an extravagant speculation. But it 
comes naturally from that account of his pecu- 
liarly endowed nature which I have given in 
these pages. It is in conformity too with the 
interpretation which I have put upon those 
momentous words of his addressed to Martha, 
and with the account given of the restoration 
of Lazarus. 

Let it once be admitted that there was a 
peculiar power in Jesus, inherent in his being, 

25 



290 THOUGHTS OX 

as a substantive fact, like any other force exist- 
ing in nature, and it follows of necessity that 
there was a life in him that made it impossible 
that he should die as ordinary men die. The 
death-agonies of crucifixion could not reach 
that inner life, nor rob it of its essential power. 
And as it was able, while he was living, to 
repair the mutilations and diseases of others, it 
had power over his own physical frame to re- 
animate that. 



How long did he continue on earth after his 
resurrection? "Where was he and what was 
the mode of his existence from his resurrection 
to his final disappearance? "What was the 
manner of his final departure? Questions 
which we can neither repress nor answer. 

The popular belief in the Christian world is, 
that he ascended visibly into the sky and so 
disappeared. But there is no authority for this 
belief in the Four Gospels. Matthew says not 
a word of his final disappearance, neither does 
John. Mark says, "he was received up into 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 291 

heaven and sat on the right hand of God." 
There is no intimation in these words that he 
rose visibly into the sky. "When he was seen 
no more, the natural inference was that he had 
gone to heaven. We are accustomed to speak 
in the same way of our friends when they take 
their final departure. The language of Luke's 
Gospel is similar: ''And it came to pass, while 
he blessed them, he was parted from them and 
carried up into heaven." That is, he was taken 
from their sight, and, as they very naturally 
concluded, was carried to God. 

It is not easy to understand how no account 
of any visible ascension should be found in any 
one of the Four Gospels, if such an event 
actually occurred; but it is easy to see how 
inferences should grow into facts, and the story 
extant in the first chapter of the Book of the 
Acts of the Apostles should have arisen out of 
the brief statements first made respecting his 
final disappearance. 

The popular belief upon this point being thus 
without foundation in the Gospels, the question 
remains: What became of Jesus after his resur- 
rection ? How, when, and where did he finally 



292 THOUGHTS ON 

disappear? I can suggest no answer to these 
inquiries. 

All that I have to say is, that whatever was 
the mode of his life after his resurrection and 
before his final disappearance, and however in- 
scrutable the manner of his final dissolution, — 
granting that, in these particulars, his history 
was wholly out of the ordinary range of human 
experience, nevertheless, I believe that it in- 
volved no miracle, in the popular acceptation of 
the word. Singular as his state must have 
been, it violated no natural law; but, on the 
contrary, it was in harmony with pre-established 
laws, laws which, as we may suppose, come 
into operation only at very great intervals. 

That there are laws or methods of action 
which come into exercise only at intervals of 
thousands of years, the first individuals of the 
human race, and indeed the first of every race 
of animated beings, attest. The first pair or 
pairs of human kind must have been brought 
into existence by a method entirely diverse 
from that, by wdiich all subsequent human 
beings have been and are produced. But al- 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 293 

though diverse, yet equally natural, equally in 
conformity to the established order of things. 
Such was the state of the planet at the time, 
that, although it is beyond our power to conjec- 
ture how it could have been, human beings 
appeared as a natural result of causes existing 
and active only at that juncture. It was just 
as natural for them, although without parents, 
to come into life then, as it is for a child to be 
born now in obedience to the now operating 
laws of generation. ^^"We are led," says Sir 
John Herschel, ^'by all analogy, to suppose 
that the Creator operates through a series of 
intermediate causes ; and that, in consequence, 
the origination of fresh species, could it ever 
come under our cognizance, would be found to 
be a natural^ in contradistinction to a miracu- 
lous^ process ; although we perceive no indica- 
tions of any process actually in progress which 
is likely to issue in such a result." ^- As in the 
natural world," remarks Professor Powell, 'Hhe 
only indications we have of the operations of 
the Divine mind are the manifestations of 
order; so whatever we ascribe to the same 

25^ 



29-1 THOUGHTS ON 

source we can only conceive as worked out in 
accordance with the same principles."^ 

As in the first appearance of man on this 
earth we have an instance of the operation of 
causes which came into action then, and for the 
action of which, the due conjunction of condi- 
tions may not occur again for a myriad of years, 
so, in the peculiar condition of Jesus after his 
resurrection and in the manner of his final dis- 
appearance, why may we not have an illustra- 
tion of similar laws ? I repeat, I do not know, 
nor am I able to guess, what was the mode of 
his existence after his resurrection, or in what 
way he took his final departure from our world. 
But, whatever were the facts, that they were as 
truly in accordance with the natural order of 
things as the most ordinary facts are now, I 
have no question. 

Jesus himself was a new fact in the world, of 
a most remarkable character. Powers, new on 
this earth, were developed in him. There was 
in him a stronger life than mankind had ever 
known. And it is not for us to assume that 

* Essays on the Spirit of the Inductive Fliitosopliy^ tC'c. 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 



such a life, a life so intense, could present no 
new and unprecedented manifestations. 



Baptism. — I cannot gather with certainty 
from Mr. Parker's remarks upon Baptism and 
the Lord's Supper in his '^Discourse of Religion^'' 
whether he believes that Jesus instituted these 
rites or not. The amount of what he says is 
that if Jesus did magnify these forms, it is a 
pity. If he did not, so much the more honor 
to him. He seems inclined, on the whole, to 
think he did not. But surely this is a question 
which, in simple justice to the great Teacher, it 
is worth while to decide. Mr. Parker would 
certainly claim, if persons should undertake, 
now or hundreds of years hence, — it makes no 
difference, — to comment upon his opinions, 
that they should at least take pains to determine 
what those opinions are. 

There is nothing in regard to the Man of 
Nazareth, which more satisfactorily appears, in 
my view, than that he prescribed no forms, — 



296 THOUGHTS ox 

instituted no ritual. And herein did he mani- 
fest his consummate wisdom, and show that he 
so fully appreciated those great laws of Justice 
and Love which he taught, that he never 
thought of exalting any ceremonial observances 
to a level with them. His aim was not to 
create any positive institutions either as to 
times, places, or ceremonies. In this respect 
the Apostle Paul understood him perfectly. 
That great man, the first to catch the import of 
the Life of Christ, saw clearly, notwithstanding 
his rigid Jewish culture, that the observance of 
times and places is utterly at variance with the 
spirit of Christ's teachings, and that to lay 
stress upon any mere external observance was 
to show oneself ignorant of their meaning.^ 
Baptism and the Lord's Supper are everywhere, 
save among the followers of Fox and Penn, 
accounted Christian Institutions. But what- 
ever may be said in their behalf, the authority 
of Christ, rightly understood, cannot be claimed 
for them. 

Baptism was a Jewish observance. It was 

* Rom. xiv, 0, 6 ; Galat. iv, 9; 10, 11. 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 297 

used especially by John the Baptist, who pre- 
ceded Jesus. Although he was himself bap- 
tized, Jesus baptized no one.^ There are only 
two passages in which he is recorded to have 
mentioned Baptism ; and these are found in the 
last chapters of Matthew and Mark. The genu- 
ineness of the last chapter of Mark, from the 
ninth verse to the end, is disputed, as it is 
wanting in many of the most accurate Greek 
MSS. But w^ithout dwelling on this fact, al- 
though it is worth noting, I think it of much 
more importance to consider, that single verses 
and phrases are not to be relied upon unless 
they harmonize with the general tenor of the 
Records, because the writers evidently never 
studied to be literally exact, and if they had, 
we cannot now be sure that we have their pre- 
cise words. In reference to this very subject of 
Baptism, John states three times in so many 
words that Jesus baptized.^ And yet, after all 
these repetitions of the assertion, he contradicts 
it, and declares that Jesus himself baptized not: 
—a very remarkable instance of the popular 

' John iv, 2. 2 John iii, 22 and 2G, and iv, 1. 



298 THOUGHTS ON 

and ■Qngiiarded way in which the IsTew Testa- 
ment histories were composed. "We are bound, 
therefore, to take care how we give any weight 
to single passages, which are not only not sup- 
ported by the pervading spirit of these books 
but in manifest inconsistency with it. 

As baptism, the bathing of the outward per- 
son in sign of inward cleansing, was a form 
familiar among the Jews, which John had 
rendered popular at the time, and by which 
the people signified that they cleansed them- 
selves in preparation for the coming kingdom, 
it is not difficult to see how, in the only two 
passages, strictly speaking in the one only pas- 
sage, in which Jesus is stated to have enjoined 
this observance, words to this efiect may have 
been attributed to him which he did not use, 
and when all that he said was, that his disciples 
should publish the Truth and bring all men to 
the acknowledgment of it. Had he attached 
the least importance to the sign, to the cere- 
mony of Baptism, how is it to be accounted for 
that he made no mention of it in the very par- 
ticular directions which he gave to his apostles 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 299 

in the tentli chapter of Matthew. Be it ever 
remembered that he never baptized any one. 

And besides, John the Baptist states in very 
striking language the difference betw^een him- 
self and Jesus. ^'I," he says, in effect, ^'bap- 
tize you Avith water, but he, w^ho is coming 
after me, and is so much my superior that I am 
not worthy to carry his shoes, will baptize you 
as with wind and fire from heaven. Water is 
the symbol of my influence, water, which, 
cleansing as it is, affects only the outward per- 
son, but the symbols of his influence are more 
penetrating elements, wind andj^r^.'' 

[The Greek word, translated as it is 'Grhost,' 
or, as it maybe, ' Spirit ^^ in Matt, iii, 11, and 
in John iii, 5 and 8, has no word in English 
that entirely corresponds to it. It is intrans- 
latable except by a paraphrase. Its general 
signification is air, breath, wind, spirit. But it 
represents air both in its subtle nature as air, 
and in its strength as wind. In the passage in 
John, above referred to, it is first translated 
wind, and afterwards spirit : ' The wind bloweth 
where it listeth,' &c., the allusion is primarily 
to the wind or material atmosphere to which 



300 THOUGHTS ON 

the immaterial life, the spirit, [spiritus^) is de- 
scribed as analogous.] 

In brief, as I understand the Eecord, Jesus 
neither enjoined Baptism nor forbade it. But 
he did condemn ao;ain and ao;ain with solemn 
emphasis all formalism, the putting of the sha- 
dow for the substance, sacrifice before mercy. 



The Lord's Supper. — I seek in vain for any 
evidence that Jesus designed formally to insti- 
tute what is now observed as a sacrament. The 
word saeramentj from a Latin word that signi- 
fies the oath by which the Eoman soldier bound 
himself to the service of his commander, no- 
where occurs in the l^ew Testament. The "Do 
this in remembrance of me," has no sound to 
my ear of command. I cannot hear in it the 
tone of one devising and instituting a ceremo- 
nial observance. It comes to me as the breath- 
ing of affection, the agonized yearning of a 
lonely heart, on the brink of a terrible death, 
for a place in affectionate and grateful hearts. 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 301 

There is no hour in the world's history less 
marked by formality than that, when Jesus 
asked to be remembered. 

Let the hour and the circumstances be con- 
sidered. He was seated for the last time at 
supper with his few personal friends. Although 
they were very devotedly attached to him, yet 
they did not understand him. In the things 
nearest and dearest to him, he was utterly 
alone. He had no human sympathy in what 
most interested him. And yet who was ever 
made for sympathy as he was, he, who felt so 
deeply for all the sorrows that burthened the 
hearts of men ! How greatly would he have 
been cheered, had he been surrounded, as the 
Grecian sage was, by friends, fully appreciating 
and warmly approving ! He longed, I believe, 
to repose upon some human heart, and to feel 
that that heart understood his purposes and 
entered into his trials. I discern this longing 
in the desire which he expressed for remem- 
brance. 

It may be gathered from his history that the 
fearful fate that awaited him, was, from a very 
early period, constantly presenting itself to his 

26 



302 THOUGHTS ON 

mind. When tlie people thronged around him, 
expressing their wonder at some extraordinary 
cure that he had wrought, and gazing at him 
with admiration, we find him talking to his dis- 
ciples about the violent death that he was to 
suffer.^ As the end drew near, everything that 
occurred reminded him of his death. Thus, 
when Mary, in the spirit of a munificent hospi- 
tality, and to express her reverence for him, 
poured the costly ointment upon his person, it 
instantly reminded him of his burial. In the 
same way, when, seated with his disciples, at 
their last supper, he broke the bread and poured 
out the wine, instantly, according to the obvious 
habit of his mind, he saw a resemblance, be- 
tween these and his body about to be lacerated 
and his blood to be shed upon the Cross. ^'It 
is my body," he says, '^it is my blood." And 
then with the most natural feeling in the world 
he gives the bread and wine to his friends, as 
the mementos of his love. Alone as he was, 
since he could not have any immediate sym- 
pathy, deprived of the reality, he comforted 

' Luke ix, 44. 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 303 

himself with the hope of having his labor of 
love gratefully cherished in remembrance when 
he himself should be on earth no more. I can- 
not well imagine anything more incongruous 
with such a state of mind than the formal insti- 
tution of a rite. 

It is because I look upon him as thus moved 
on that memorable evening, that the observ- 
ance of a commemorative service, having him 
for its object, and founded upon this touching 
incident of the last supper, has, in my view, an 
obvious propriety. It may be of the simplest 
character possible. Some form is requisite to 
make the occasion social. The simple exhibi- 
tion, at stated times, of a broken loaf of bread 
and a cup of wine would suffice for the purpose. 
It is not necessary that either should be tasted. 
Let them be placed in view, and let a voice be 
given to these mute memorials by those who 
unite in the observance. Let no thought be 
entertained of excluding any who desire to be 
present. The observance can stand only on a 
level with other social religious exercises, to 
which all are made equally welcome. 

I have no idea that any thought passed 



304 TnOUGHTS ON 

tlirougli the mind of Jesus, either of restricting 
the remembrance of him to his immediate 
friends, or of perpetuating and extending it. 
One only thought possessed him, and that was, 
that it should be held in affectionate remem- 
brance that, as bread and wine nourish and 
refresh, so he had given his body and his blood 
for the benefit of men. 'Not a formal, but a 
personal recognition he longed for. His appeal 
was, in a manner, addressed to the universal 
heart of humanity, and must be felt by all who 
are impressed by the divine beauty of his life. 
Therefore, a service, having for its object the 
commemoration of Jesus, if observed at all, 
should be observed, not as a positive duty en- 
joined in a tone of authority, but as a sacred 
offering of gratitude and friendship, not because 
there is any mystical virtue in the bread and 
wine, but only because they make an occasion 
for communing with his Godlike Humanity. 



TUB LIFE OF JESUS. 305 



Is it any wonder that Jesus of Nazareth is 
not even yet understood ? No great man ever 
was understood all at once. In the moral 
world, as in the material, greatness requires, in 
order to be appreciated, that the spectator 
should not stand too near. The world has 
always had to take time to understand great 
men. The way of the world is, when they first 
appear, to treat them with ridicule and abuse, 
and hunt them out of life as fiercely as possible, 
and then, after a space, to rush to the other 
extreme, and confound all intelligible ideas of 
them by extravagant adulation. 

In no instance has this way of the world 
been more strikingly shown than in the case of 
Jesus of Nazareth. But the fact that it is now 
nearly two thousand years since he lived, and 
that, during all this time, men have been 
wrangling about him, and have not yet come 
to any clear and general decision as to who or 
what he was, — is it not a most impressive tri- 
bute to his greatness ? Does it not show that 
he was no ordinary person, to be measured and 

26^- 



306 THOUGHTS ON 

seen through at a glance? His dimensions 
must be sublime to have cast so huge a shadow 
over the ages. 

And yet that the world is so slow in coming 
to a right understanding of him is not owing to 
any mystery in him. The special mark of 
Greatness is Simplicity; and Jesus is the 
greatest because the simplest of human beings. 
His truth is transparent as crystal. All Nature 
shines through it. His character is indivisibly 
single. And for this very reason, because he 
was so profoundly imbued with the simplicity 
of Nature, even in the very respects in which 
he was new and original, men, sophisticated by 
their arts and artifices, have failed to under- 
stand him. By the insatiable passion for the 
strange, which is unable to perceive the stupen- 
dous miracle of the visible Universe because it 
is familiar, we are blinded to the simple beauty 
of the Man of Nazareth. So far astray are 
men thus led from the divine simplicity of 
Truth, as to believe that he was the very God- 
head, Uncreated and Incomprehensible, while 
every line of his history is the history of a 
suffering, dying man ! 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 307 



According to the representation given of 
Jesus in these pages, he had no means of reli- 
gious certainty differing in kind from the means 
of certainty open to all men. That is to say, 
as we are, so was he, in this world, surrounded 
by the same silence, the same darkness, exposed 
to the same questionings, liable to be bewil- 
dered by the same mysteries. I do not believe 
that any more direct communications were 
made to him than may be made to us all, or 
that any method of religious knowledge was 
possessed by him that was out of the course of 
Nature, and not provided by the established 
laws of the spiritual world. 

In so saying, I am not intimating that he had 
not the strongest grounds possible for the con- 
victions which he cherished, grounds, to which 
no conceivable miracle could have added any 
strength. He knew himself to be in the right, 
beyond the possibility of doubt. Knowing 
this, he knew with equal certainty that he was 
speaking the word, doing the will of the High- 
est. This he knew by the decisive testimony 



308 THOUGHTS ON 

of his own consciousness, the strongest possible 
testimony, the surest foundation of faith. Sup- 
pose that he had read the divine will written 
out in visible characters on the sky, and an 
articulate voice had spoken to him out of a 
cloud, when the vision and the voice had 
ceased, if he had not had the interior and ever- 
present evidence of his own sense of truth, 
what could have saved him from suspecting 
that he had been the dupe of an illusion ? 

Therefore I say, it was upon no uncertain 
basis of sensible appearances and audible 
sounds that the faith, or rather knowledge of 
Jesus, reposed. As truth comes to us, so it 
came to him, from within. And as it required, 
so it indicates the greatest spiritual strength in 
him to maintain himself unmoved at the lofty 
point of personal conviction which he reached. 

Consider the case. There he stood, a young 
man, having a faith which no one understood, 
an ideal far above what the world even yet has 
realized. What was truth to him was truth to 
no one else in anything like the same degree. 
He was moved from within, without the shadow 
of a misgiving, to say and to do what aroused 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 809 

the most determined opposition. He was con- 
scious of no purposes but the most beneficent. 
And yet he was instantly met with fierce con- 
tradiction from all that the world esteemed 
pious and honorable. Wonderful is it that he 
never faltered, and was never driven to the 
madness of doubt and denial. Only once, and 
that was only for a moment, in his extremest 
agony, did he express himself as if he were for- 
saken of God. If man ever breathed, who had 
reason to question the Eternal Providence, it 
was he. And yet he not only retained his self- 
possession under this terrible trial, but retained 
it so perfectly that the sweetness of his hu- 
manity was never embittered, the loftiness of 
his ideal never abated ; and, utterly dark as his 
outlook must have been, he never beheld the 
Overruling Power in any other light than as 
Infinite Goodness symbolized by the tenderest 
of all relations, the relation of a parent. In the 
desolation of a solitude more complete than 
was ever before or since endured by man, he 
was calm and wise, and as full of trust in the 
Truth as if he were cheered by the sympathy 
of the whole world, never losing faith in God 



310 THOUGHTS ON 

or man. In tlie centre of this immeasurable 
mystery of Being, his personal life, rounded ofi* 
into a consistency with itself and with all 
things, as simple and grand as Nature herself, 
stands a finished representation and image of 
the True and the Perfect, and is the one fact 
external to us, on which, as on a rock amidst 
storm-tost billows, we may repose in inexpres- 
sible peace. Although light should break from 
no other point on earth and in heaven, here, 
from the personal character of Jesus of Naza- 
reth, fashioned to so marvellous a beauty in the 
darkest circumstances, so lofty and so symme- 
trical, comes an illumination that extends far 
and wide, down through the mysteries of Life 
and Death, and up to the Infinite God. The 
words of Jesus, to which the Eternal voice 
within bears witness, being transmuted into a 
life and forming that into harmony with all 
nature, and irradiating it with beauty, are thus 
shown to be the words of Truth. 

Thus actualizing the holiest Ideal with an 
unprecedented grace and completeness, the 
Life of Jesus, addressing the highest that is in 
us, is invested with great power, power to sus- 



THE LIFE OF JESUS. 811 

tain and cheer us when we reel and totter, 
bewildered amidst the yawning depths and im- 
minent heights of Being. Sympathy is a neces- 
sity of our nature, and very few are there who 
do not sometimes need something without to 
reflect the light within, — something external to 
lean upon. Is it an instinct ? Is it a weakness ? 
"Whatever it is. Glory to God in the highest 
that, amidst the multitude of doubtful supports, 
beliefs and no-beliefs, that are offered us, there 
is One support, for the sufiiciency of which we 
have every voucher that the reason, the admi- 
ration, the reverence, the love, — every good 
instinct and sentiment of our nature, — can 
supply ! 



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